'A/2,.2-3. 

LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON.  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the 

Mrs.  Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund. 


Division 


Section 


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THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/storyofwalloonsaOOgrif 


JOHANN  PRINTZ 

Governor  of  New  Sweden,  1643-1653 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 
WALLOONS 

AT  HOME,  IN  LANDS  OF  EXILE 
AND  IN  AMERICA 

BY 

WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS,  A.M.,  D.D.,  L.H.D 

Member  of  the  American  Historical  Association,  of  the  Asiatic  and  Historical 
Societies  of  Japan  and  Korea,  of  Literary  and  Scientific  Societies  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  of  the  Societe  d’Histoire  de  Protestantisme  Beige 
Author  of  “  Belgium:  The  Land  of  Art,”  “  The  Story  of 
New  Netherland,”  “  Belgian  Fairy  Tales,”  etc. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Efje  &tber$foe  Cambridge 
1923 


COPYRIGHT,  1923,  BY  WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


®fjc  fttoergttie  $rc«g 

CAMBRIDGE  •  MASSACHUSETTS 


PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A, 


DEDICATED 

TO  ALL  DESCENDANTS  OF  THE 
BELGIC  PILGRIM  FATHERS 
OF  THE 

MIDDLE  STATES 

WHO  BY  THEIR  GIFTS  AND  GRACES 
ENRICHED  THE  AMERICAN  COMPOSITE 


PREFACE 


There  are  thousands  of  books  on  New  York  and 
the  Middle  States  —  Distinctive  America  —  but  in 
scarcely  one,  European  or  American,  except  in  a 
few  local  histories,  is  more  than  a  passing  reference 
made  to  the  first  home-makers  of  the  Empire  Com¬ 
monwealth,  and  in  many  none  at  all. 

Thirty-one  years  ago,  after  seeing  in  Leyden  the 
records  relating  to  Jesse  de  Forest,  I  proposed  a 
memorial  in  honor  of  him  and  his  fellow  refugees 
for  conscience’  sake.  He  was  the  potential  begin¬ 
ner  of  the  commonwealth  of  New  York,  for  he  was 
the  moving  spirit  in  a  colony  of  Walloons  who 
were  the  first  builders  of  homes  with  families  and 
were  tillers  of  the  soil  of  [Terra]  Nova  Belgica,  or 
New  Belgium.  This  territory  comprised  the  area 
of  our  four  Middle  States,  and  was  so  named  when 
given  a  civic  organization  in  1626. 

These  first  home-makers  in  Distinctive  America 

were  high-souled  pioneers  of  the  freedom  of  the 

human  spirit  and  not  merely  seekers  after  gain,  in 

fish  and  furs.  They  were  beginners  of  the  social 

life  of  the  Middle  States,  with  interests  rooted  in 

the  soil.  I  proceed  on  the  principle  that  men  and 

women,  homes  and  families,  are  the  foundations  of 

a  State,  and  the  Walloons  began  these  in  1624.  The 

•  • 

Vll 


PREFACE 


trading  corporation,  called  the  West  India  Com¬ 
pany,  went  out  of  existence  in  a  few  years,  but  the 
people  remained. 

Beholding  on  Manhattan  numerous  memorials 
of  those  who  came  later  —  and  of  many  who,  in  a 
large  sense,  were  foreigners,  that  never  saw  Amer¬ 
ica —  while  its  beginners  were  ignored,  I  felt 
ashamed.  Seeing  in  the  archives  and  in  the  Wal¬ 
loon  Library  of  Leyden  the  wealth  of  documents 
and  data  relating  to  the  first  settlers  of  both  New 
England  and  of  the  Middle  States,  I  was  still  fur¬ 
ther  impressed.  In  the  hospitable  university  city 
of  that  Dutch  Republic  —  from  which  our  fathers 
borrowed  the  stripes  in  our  flag  and  so  many  of  our 
federal  precedents,  social  customs,  and  inspiring 
ideas  —  I  noted  the  multitudinous  records  of  at 
least  four  of  the  great  strains  in  our  national  com¬ 
posite,  English,  Dutch,  Flemish,  and  Walloon. 

In  the  company  of  those  free  churchmen  who 
first  in  1797  were  called  “Pilgrim  Fathers”  there 
were,  besides  the  four  nations  of  the  British  Isles, 
four  others  represented  —  making  a  true  type  of 
our  own  mixed  people.  Before  1873,  over  five  thou¬ 
sand  English-speaking  students  had  been  educated 
in  Leyden.  Possibly  a  similar  total  could  be  counted 
up  in  the  other  “high  schools,”  at  Utrecht,  Franeker, 
Groningen,  Amsterdam,  and  Delft. 

Besides  the  city  or  community  archives,  I  found 
in  the  Klog  Steeg,  across  from  St.  Peter’s  Church, 
in  the  Walloon  Library,  an  astonishing  wealth  of 


vm 


PREFACE 


records  and  data  concerning  these  French-speaking 
exiles,  pilgrims  and  strangers  from  southern  Bel¬ 
gium;  for  in  the  Republic  were  nearly  seventy 
Walloon  churches  —  usually  spoken  of  as  “French,” 
because  they  used  that  noble  language. 

Of  these  records  of  the  neighbors  in  Leyden  of 
the  “Pilgrims”  —  a  name  now  so  honored,  yet  one 
which  describes  with  equal  accuracy  and  justice 
the  French-speaking  Belgic  refugees,  called  Wal¬ 
loons  (or  pilgrims)  —  I  have  made  good  use.  Sev¬ 
eral  visits  in  their  old  home,  the  southern  provinces 
of  Belgium,  Hainault,  Luxembourg,  Liege,  Namur, 
and  Brabant,  quickened  my  interest  in  the  story  — 
virtually  untold  in  America  —  of  these  who  re¬ 
garded  not  money,  fame,  or  comfort,  but  left  all, 
for  “  freedom  to  worship  God.”  I  visited  also  most 
of  the  cities  in  Germany  to  which  so  many  of  the 
Walloons  fled,  and  I  hunted  up  in  England  several 
places  of  worship  of  these  French-speaking  Chris¬ 
tians,  besides  reading  the  records  of  the  larger 
churches  of  the  Dispersion.  To  these,  and  to  the 
publications  of  the  Societe  d’Histoire  de  Protestan- 
tisme  Beige,  and  the  Walloonsche  Bibliothek  of 
Leyden,  and  to  many  correspondents  —  Dozy,  du 
Rhieu,  Vedder,  de  Boer,  Ravenel,  Stoudt,  and 
others,  besides  our  American  ministers,  consuls, 
and  correspondents  abroad  —  I  am  much  indebted. 

Yet  even  more  than  by  consulting  documents,  or 
by  reading  books,  I  gladly  acknowledge  that  it  was 
by  having  lived  nine  years  in  Schenectady,  amid 


ix 


PREFACE 


many  descendants  of  the  Walloons,  hearing  their 
traditions,  reading  the  records  in  their  family  Bibles, 
seeing  and  handling  many  heirlooms  and  relics  of 
colonial  times,  especially  in  the  loan  exhibition  of 
1880,  that  my  imagination  was  first  quickened,  and 
my  desire  to  know  more  of  these  “  beginners  of  a 
better  time”  became  a  fixed  purpose.  Documents 
and  printed  matter  give  one  the  facts,  but  not  the 
full  truth,  and  one  must  have  a  view  from  within, 
of  history’s  “  storied  windows,  richly  dight,”  to 
appreciate  the  full  effects  of  these  people  upon  our 
American  civilization. 

As  I  first  heard  the  description  of  “Old  Dorp,” 
from  an  habitual  traveler  in  Europe,  long  before  it 
became  either  the  place  of  my  labors  or  the  Electric 
City,  he  pictured  the  Schenectady  of  1867  as  “an 
old  Flemish  town”  —  an  “eddy  in  the  current  of 
American  history.” 

Not  only  was  there  a  continuous  stream  of  Wal¬ 
loons  or  of  settlers  of  Belgic  stock  into  this  settle¬ 
ment  on  the  Binne  Kill  of  the  Mohawk  River, 
from  1661  to  1700  and  later,  but  no  fewer  than 
three  and  possibly  four  of  my  predecessors  in  the 
pulpit  bore  Walloon  names,  or  had  Belgic  blood  in 
their  veins.  In  this  town  and  congregation  was 
reared  and  thence  went  forth  Dr.  Charles  Vedder, 
who,  for  nearly  a  half-century,  was  pastor  of  the 
Church  of  the  Huguenots  of  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  and  whose  friendship  I  enjoyed  for  many 
years.  In  Boston,  I  met  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 


x 


PREFACE 

who  told  me  of  his  ancestor  who  was  a  deacon  in 
the  same  church. 

In  my  journey  through  life,  in  many  countries 
and  cities,  I  have  had  pleasant  comrades,  school¬ 
mates,  friends,  and  acquaintances,  whose  names, 
in  the  perspective  of  memory,  have  revealed  the 
fact  that  they  were  of  either  Belgic  Walloon  or 
French  Huguenot  descent.  Yet,  throughout  this 
book,  I  have  tried  to  avoid  linguistic  pitfalls,  and 
have  made  no  statements  of  fact  based  alone  on  the 
verbal  analogy  of  a  name. 

I  have  not  attempted  a  history  of  the  French 
Huguenots  in  America,  but  a  sketch  of  the  Belgic 
Walloons.  Nor,  with  the  awful  example  of  some 
historians  before  me,  have  I  lost  the  soul  of  the 
story  in  a  mass  of  antiquarian  details.  Without 
any  special  interest  in  individual  genealogies,  but 
with  the  purpose  of  knowing  who  and  whence  the 
American  people  were  and  are,  have  I  pursued  my 
search  and  inquiries. 

It  is,  then,  out  of  the  heart,  as  well  as  from  read¬ 
ing  and  research  —  believing  that  sympathy  is  the 
key  to  interpretation  —  as  an  American  who  feels 
grateful  indebtedness  to  all  who  helped  in  the  mak¬ 
ing  of  the  world’s  greatest  nation  and  possibly  hu¬ 
manity’s  highest  hope,  and  in  the  belief  that  no 
sectional  or  sectarian  history  of  the  United  States 
can  fully  or  fairly  tell  our  country’s  story,  that 
this  sketch  of  the  pioneers  —  Belgic  Walloons  and 
French  Huguenots,  who  made  so  rich  a  contribu- 


xi 


✓ 


PREFACE 

tion  to  our  national  treasury  of  inheritances  —  is 
set  forth. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who  broke 
the  yoke  of  Norman  feudalism  and  separated 
Church  and  State,  yet  who  held  the  same  faith  and 
language,  but  whose  story  was  occulted  by  the 
later  and  larger  immigration  of  the  Puritans,  so 
with  the  Walloons.  They  were  Huguenots  in  faith, 
their  native  speech  was  French,  and  a  large  part  of 
Belgic  Land,  long  after  the  Walloon  emigration  to 
America,  was  annexed  to  France.  Hence,  in  the 
greater  influx,  not  only  of  the  Dutch  and  Flemings, 
but  of  the  French  Huguenots  in  1690,  the  story  of 
the  Walloons  was  forgotten.  In  fame,  the  one,  the 
Huguenot,  increased;  while  the  other,  the  Walloon, 
decreased,  almost  to  oblivion. 

Yet  it  may  be  that  art  will  yet  glorify,  the  pen 
record,  the  chisel  create,  the  burin  limn,  and  the 
inscribed  tablet  tell,  in  forms  of  beauty,  of  these 
old  facts  and  truths  herein  set  forth.  Politics,  gov¬ 
ernments,  rulers,  and  maps  change;  but  family  life, 
the  basis  and  standard  of  civilization,  perdures,  and 
these  people  were  the  makers  of  homes.  The  date 
1924  may  be  even  more  appropriate  than  1926  for 
our  Tercentenary  and  subsequent  celebrations.  In 
either  or  both,  it  may  be  well  to  quote  Schiller’s 
line,  “Respect  him,  for  he  is  a  Walloon,”  and  to 
recall  that  French  was  the  initial  speech  in  the 
homes  of  New  York,  that  its  colonial  laws  and 

scores  of  church  records  were  kept  or  published  in 

•  • 

Xll 


PREFACE 


this  language  also,  during  two  generations;  and, 
above  all,  that  the  motto  of  the  Walloons  was 
Nisi  Dominus  Frustra. 

W.  E.  G. 


Pulaski,  New  York 
May  io,  1923 


I 


V 


N 


AUTHORITIES  CONSULTED 


Space  does  not  allow  full  expression  of  thanks  and 
grateful  obligations  to  the  librarians,  archivists, 
diplomatists,  and  correspondents  in  Belgium,  the 
Netherlands,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Great  Britain, 
France,  Switzerland,  South  America,  South  Africa, 
and  the  United  States  who  have  freely  given  aid; 
but  to  the  late  Professor  du  Rhieu  of  Leyden ;  Dr.  J. 
C.  Van  Dyke,  of  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey;  Mr. 
A.  J.  F.  van  Laer,  archivist,  of  Albany;  Dr.  Louis 
P.  de  Boer,  of  Denver,  Colorado;  and  the  Reverend 
J.  Baer  Stoudt,  of  Allentown,  Pennsylvania,  my 
acknowledgments  of  obligation  are  especially  due. 

Philip  Schaff:  Creeds  of  Christendom.  3  vols. 

Registres  de  I'Eglise  Reformee  Neerlandaise  de  Frankenthal  au 
Palatinate ,  1565-1689. 

Publications  of  the  Society  d’Histoire  de  Protestantisme  Beige. 

Books  and  pamphlets  in  the  Walloonsche  Bibliothek  in  Leyden. 

Various  histories  of  Belgium  and  the  Netherlands  —  Perrine, 
van  der  Linden,  van  der  Essen,  Cammaerts,  Blok,  Putnam, 
Motley,  Hansen,  etc. 

Bulletins  of  the  Societe  Beige  d’Etudes  coloniales. 

D.  F.  Poujol:  Histoire  et  Influence  des  Eglises  Wallonnes  dans 
les  Pays-Bas. 

Jean  Martheilhies:  Memoirs  of  a  Protestant  ( Galley  Slave). 
Translated  by  Oliver  Goldsmith. 

La  Cloquet:  Les  Artistes  Wallons.  Brussels,  1913. 

The  works  of  modern  writers  on  Belgium,  native  and  foreign. 


xv 


AUTHORITIES  CONSULTED 

J.  Winkler:  De  Nederlandsche  Geschlactsnamen.  1885. 

Nieuw  Nederlandsch  Biografisch  Woordenboek.  5  vols. 

L.  A.  van  Langeraad:  Guido  de  Bray ,  Zijn  Leven  en  Werken. 
1884. 

Register  of  the  Dutch  Church  in  Austin  Friars,  London  (Flem¬ 
ings,  Walloons,  Netherlanders). 

Thirty  Thousand  Names  of  Immigrants.  Philadelphia,  1898. 

Ecclesiastical  Records  of  the  State  of  New  York.  7  vols. 

Colonial  History  of  New  York. 

C.  Versteeg:  The  Sea  Beggars. 

C.  W.  Baird:  History  of  the  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America. 

H.  M.  Baird:  History  of  the  Rise  of  the  Huguenots. 

L.  J.  Fosdick:  The  French  Blood  in  America. 

F.  J.  Zwierlein:  Religion  in  New  Nether  land  (1623-1664).  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Louvain,  1910. 

J.  F.  Jameson:  Narratives  of  New  Netherland. 

J.  W.  de  Forest:  The  de  Forests  of  Avesnes. 

Mrs.  R.  W.  de  Forest:  A  Walloon  Family  in  America.  2  vols. 

F.  V.  Goethals:  Dictionnaire  genealogique  et  heraldique  des 
families  nobles  du  royaume  de  Belgique.  Vols.  i-iv.  Bruxelles, 
1849-52. 

Publications  of  the  Huguenot  Societies  in  England  and  the 
United  States. 

E.  T.  and  C.  Corwin:  Manual  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  Amer¬ 
ica.  Five  editions. 

Various  local  histories,  commemorative  discourses,  etc.,  of 
Schenectady,  Albany,  Staten  Island,  New  Paltz,  New  Rochelle, 
Long  Island,  and  of  towns  and  cities  in  the  British  Isles. 

Sermons,  pamphlets,  genealogies,  memorial  publications,  mem¬ 
oirs,  biographies,  programmes  used  at  commemorative  celebra¬ 
tions  of  Huguenot  Walloon  churches,  in  Europe  and  America. 

The  authorities  used  for  Belgium:  The  Land  of  Art,  The  Story 
of  New  Netherland ,  and  Why  Americans  should  Visit  Belgium 
(1922). 


CONTENTS 


I.  Beginners  of  the  Middle  States  i 

II.  Who  were  the  Walloons?  8 

III.  How  the  Nations  of  Europe  were 

FORMED  17 

IV.  How  Asia  enriched  Europe  28 

V.  The  Glorious  Burgundian  Era  35 

VI.  In  the  Time  of  Charles  V  42 

VII.  The  Deathless  Book  51 

VIII.  Where  and  When  began  the  Reforma¬ 
tion?  59 

IX.  The  Walloon  Hero:  Guido  de  Bray  72 

X.  The  Church  under  the  Cross  87 

XI.  In  the  Lands  of  Exile  ioi 

XII.  The  Walloons  enrich  Sweden  iio 

XIII.  The  Floating  Purgatory  119 

XIV.  The  Economic  Creators  of  Europe  124 

XV.  Jesse  de  Forest  and  the  Ship  New  Neth- 

ERLAND  134 

XVI.  Making  the  Wilderness  bloom  15 i 

XVII.  Governor  Peter  Minuit  163 

XVIII.  Secretary  Isaac  de  Rasieres  176 

XIX.  Food  for  the  Soul  183 

xvii 


CONTENTS 


XX.  Rich  Farms  on  Manhattan  192 

XXL  The  Island  of  the  States  199 

XXII.  The  American  Palatinate  210 

XXIII.  The  English  Conquest  222 

XXIV.  Who  was  Jacob  Leisler?  236 

XXV.  Walloons  become  Frenchmen  247 

XXVI.  Greater  Walloonia  253 

XXVII.  The  American  Walloon  Domines  258 

XXVIII.  Names  in  Transformation  266 

XXIX.  Life’s  Journey  among  the  Walloons  273 
The  Framework  of  Time  281 

Index  287 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Johann  Printz,  Governor  of  New  Sweden,  1643- 

1653  Frontispiece 

From  an  original  portrait  painted  from  life.  Photograph  by 
kindness  of  Governor  W.  C.  Sproul  of  Pennsylvania 

The  Great  Monument  of  the  (Calvinistic) 

Reformation  at  Geneva  (1918)  60 

Allegory  representing  the  Coming  of  the 

Prince  of  Orange  96 

From  an  engraving  of  1572 

A  Galley  120 

From  an  old  French  print  in  the  U.S.  Navy  archives, 
Washington 

Tablet  on  the  Law  School  of  New  York  Univer¬ 
sity  in  Honor  of  the  Dutch  and  Walloon 
Teachers  in  Nova  Belgica,  or  New  Nether- 
land  184 

Statue  of  Jacob  Leisler  at  New  Rochelle,  N.Y.  236 

The  Walloon  Church  in  Amsterdam  248 

From  an  old  Dutch  print 

Some  Walloon  Coats  of  Arms  266 

From  the  Belgian  Nobiliares  (noble  and  aristocratic  fami¬ 
lies)  in  the  New  York  Public  Library 


\ 


THE  STORY  OF  THE 
WALLOONS 


CHAPTER  I 

BEGINNERS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  STATES 

The  first  permanent  settlers  who,  in  any  number, 
came  with  wives  and  children  to  make  homes  and  to 
till  the  soil  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Delaware  were  Walloons,  or  French-speaking 
people,  from  the  Belgic  Netherlands. 

Who  were  they,  and  why  did  they  come? 

Few  people  from  northern  Europe,  three  hundred 
years  ago,  wanted  to  go  and  live  in  America,  when  it 
was  a  howling  wilderness  full  of  savage  beasts  and 
men.  A  great,  wide,  stormy  ocean  had  first  to  be 
crossed,  and  many  who  made  the  attempt  died  on 
the  way  or  were  massacred  when  on  land.  In  most 
cases,  colonization  meant  starvation.  That  was  the 
reason,  most  probably,  why  in  1620  the  captain  of 
the  Speedwell,  which  contained  by  far  the  better 
company  of  the  Plymouth  settlers,  made  a  pretext 
of  leaks  and  turned  back;  for  the  store  of  provisions 
was  on  the  Mayflower.  By  most  people  in  Europe 
the  Atlantic  had  long  been  considered  a  Sea  of  Dark¬ 
ness,  and  North  America  the  Land  of  Wild  Men.  It 


1 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


was  only  the  West  Indies,  or  South  America,  where 
the  soil  was  rich  and  food  plenty,  that  attracted  col¬ 
onists;  but  there  dwelt  the  Spaniard,  who  perse¬ 
cuted.  Between  the  Inquisition  and  the  cannibals 
there  was  little  choice. 

So  it  was  that  before  men  would  come  with  fami¬ 
lies  to  what  is  now  the  best  of  all  countries,  they  had 
to  be  pushed  or  driven  out  from  their  home  lands, 
like  fledglings  from  the  nest.  Cruel  kings  or  church 
rulers  must  force  them  to  leave  their  own  towns  and 
cities,  houses  and  gardens,  before  they  could  think  of 
exile.  With  most  of  the  first  pioneers,  it  was  a  choice 
between  prison  and  torture,  being  burned  alive,  or 
having  their  heads  chopped  off. 

In  distant  America  were  red  hunters  with  toma¬ 
hawks  and  scalping  knives,  who  might  treat  stran¬ 
gers  as  wild  game.  Such  Americans  as  then  lived 
here  were  as  ready  to  roast  men  alive  as  were  the 
kings,  bishops,  and  judges  of  the  Europe  of  that  day 
to  send  innocent  people  to  the  axe,  the  sword,  and  the 
flames.  Nor  were  these  benighted  red  Americans  so 
much  to  blame,  seeing  that  most  white  men  of  that 
day  enticed  or  hunted  the  natives  with  bloodhounds, 
and  made  slaves  of  them.  What  real  difference,  then, 
except  in  name,  between  “ heathen ”  and  “Chris¬ 
tians”? 

Their  Most  Christian  Majesties  were  often  worse 
than  Turks  or  heathen  in  treating  even  their  own 
subjects.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  brave  Nether- 
landers,  called  Beggars  of  the  Sea  —  many  of  whom 


2 


BEGINNERS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  STATES 


were  Walloons  —  wore  a  silver  crescent,  or  half 
moon,  with  the  motto  “Better  Turk  than  Pope.” 
Henry  Hudson  in  a  ship  named  from  the  Beggars* 
badge  and  under  the  seven-red-and-white-striped 
flag  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  entered  the  rivers  Dela¬ 
ware  and  Hudson,  between  which  are  the  four  Mid¬ 
dle  States  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
and  Delaware,  constituting  Distinctive  America. 
Its  first  geographical  name  was  New  Netherland. 
Its  first  official  name  was  [Terra]  Nova  Belgica,  or 
New  Belgium  —  a  term  that  occurs  in  ancient  Latin, 
as  well  as  in  1830,  when  Belgium  became  an  inde¬ 
pendent  state. 

Some  of  us  rightly  call  this  region  of  the  four  Mid¬ 
dle  States,  Distinctive  America;  because  while  from 
the  first  it  was  more  like  Europe  than  any  other  part 
of  the  United  States,  it  was  very  different  also. 
Other  colonies  followed  Old  World  ideas,  denied  free¬ 
dom  of  conscience  and  kept  Church  and  State  united ; 
but  religion  was  free  in  this  central  region.  It  was 
less  like  England  or  France,  but  more  like  the  Re¬ 
public  of  the  United  Netherlands,  where  any  one 
could  worship  God  in  the  way  he  wished. 

The  people  of  the  Middle  States  were  not  from 
one  state  or  country  as  were  those  from  the  British 
Isles  who  made  New  England.  Before  the  Revolu¬ 
tion,  they  numbered  no  fewer  than  fourteen  distinct 
nationalities  differing  in  language  and  forms  of  reli¬ 
gion  ;  but  these  four  colonies  formed  the  first  group 
that  was  united  under  one  government  and  in  which 

3 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


there  was  toleration  for  all.  When  later  Governor 
Stuyvesant  played  the  bigot,  he  was  at  once  rebuked 
by  the  home  Government.  It  was  in  this  Middle  Re¬ 
gion  that  the  first  idea  of  a  union  of  all  the  colonies 
arose;  and  here  was  the  home  of  the  First  Colonial 
and  the  First  Continental  Congress,  the  Declara¬ 
tion  of  Independence,  the  national  flag,  the  Consti¬ 
tution,  and  most  of  the  ideas  and  influences  that 
tended  to  bind  the  separated  colonies  in  federal 
union  under  one  government,  infused  with  one  soul 
as  a  nation. 

There  never  was  any  such  country  or  place  called 
New  Netherlands.  In  naming  geographically,  in 
1614,  the  new  American  province  of  the  Dutch  Repub¬ 
lic,  New  Netherland,  and  politically  [Terra]  Nova 
Belgica,  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  followed 
the  example  set  by  one  of  the  best  men  who  ever 
lived.  This  was  William  the  Silent,  called  the  Father 
of  his  Country,  and  the  ancestor  of  Queen  Wilhel- 
mina.  When  his  baby  daughter  was  born,  he  had  her 
christened  at  Antwerp  and  named  Catherine  Bel¬ 
gica.  William  hoped  that  all  the  seventeen  prov¬ 
inces  of  the  Netherlands  would  be  united  in  one  re¬ 
public  and  under  one  flag,  with  liberal  ideas  as  to 
religion,  that  is,  freedom  of  conscience  guaranteed 
to  all;  and  he  very  nearly  succeeded  in  realizing  it. 
The  Dutch  federal  flag,  from  which  we  borrowed  the 
stripes  in  ours,  consisted  of  seven  alternate  bands  of 
color,  white  and  red,  representing  commonwealths, 
not  individual  rulers. 


4 


BEGINNERS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  STATES 


William  wanted  seventeen  stripes,  as  earnestly  as 
our  forefathers  in  1775,  led  by  General  Washing¬ 
ton  and  Dr.  Benjamin  Franklin,  hoped  for  fourteen 
stripes  in  ours,  by  having  Canada  in  the  federation, 
for  this  province  had  been  represented  in  the  first 
Continental  Congress  of  1774.  In  America,  Puritan 
New  England  opposed  toleration  in  Canada.  We 
need  not  wonder  at  this,  when  politics  and  religion 
were  considered  as  one  and  inseparable.  In  Ghent, 
fanatics  on  one  side  were  just  as  bad  as  those  on  the 
other,  for  the  Calvinists  burnt  monks  and  priests 
alive. 

In  the  Union  of  Arras  (now  in  France),  in  1578, 
the  Belgic  Netherlands  separated  from  the  Dutch. 
Then  the  flag  of  the  Republic  had  only  seven  stripes. 
Yet  often  the  republican  battle  flag  consisted  of 
twenty-one  stripes,  that  is,  the  red,  white,  and  blue 
seven  times  repeated. 

It  is  both  fact  and  truth  to  assert  that  those 
who  most  persecuted  men  for  their  conscience’  sake 
helped  powerfully  to  effect  the  colonization  of  Amer¬ 
ica.  This  is  confessed  even  in  memorials  to  the  perse¬ 
cutors.  For  example,  some  English  people  put  up  a 
stained  glass  window  in  the  church  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  in  which  Shakespeare  is  buried.  The  inscrip¬ 
tion  says  that  Archbishop  Laud  “  promoted  the  col¬ 
onization  of  America.”  But  how?  In  the  same  way 
that  Philip  II,  the  King  of  France,  and  the  Pope  did. 
All  were  men  of  their  time.  They  did  not  think  as 
rulers  do  now,  and  they  all  supposed  they  were  doing 

5 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


right.  It  had  been  the  old  way  and  they  followed  in 
the  footsteps  of  their  fathers,  fearing  the  wrath  of 
Heaven  if  they  departed  from  it.  Unconsciously 
they  were  as  sons  of  Jacob  and  brothers  of  Joseph. 

Laud  thought  that  people  who  did  not  think  as  he 
did  should  be  robbed,  imprisoned,  put  to  death,  or 
driven  out  of  the  country.  So  did  Louis  XIV,  the 
King  of  France.  So  also  did  the  Queens,  Mary  and 
Elizabeth.  Exiled  from  their  home  land,  English 
fathers  and  mothers,  as  early  as  1555,  called  them¬ 
selves  pilgrims  and  gave  to  more  than  one  child  the 
name  Peregrine,  as  was  later  done  on  the  May¬ 
flower.  King  James  I  and  his  feudal  bishops  drove 
out  the  thinking  people,  thousands  of  whom  took 
refuge  first  in  the  Dutch  Republic,  where  “religion 
was  free  for  all  men”  —  later  enriching  America 
at  the  expense  of  England.  Thus  the  monarchs  of 
Spain,  France,  and  England  “promoted  the  coloni¬ 
zation  of  America.” 

It  is  all  so  very  different  now  —  for  we  live  in  a 
new  world  of  thought  —  that  we  must  ask,  “Why 
were  these  rulers  of  Church  and  State  so  cruel 
and  bitter  against  innocent  people,  who  had  done 
no  wrong,  neither  committed  any  crime?”  Were 
those  “commanded  to  leave  the  realm”  bandits  or 
murderers? 

These  rulers  themselves  would  be  thought  such  if 
they  lived  to-day,  but  three  hundred  years  ago,  the 
ideas  and  customs  of  both  “Christians”  and  “hea¬ 
then,”  in  Asia  and  in  Europe,  were  very  much  alike 

6 


BEGINNERS  OF  THE  MIDDLE  STATES 


in  one  respect.  The  gentlemen  who  sat  on  thrones 
and  wore  crowns,  and  those  in  miters  and  lawn 
sleeves,  were  pretty  much  of  one  mind  in  their  pol¬ 
icy.  If  any  man  held  a  different  opinion  from  theirs 
he  was  considered  an  outcast  and  worthy  of  death. 
Non-conformity  was  a  crime.  Was  it  China,  or  In¬ 
dia,  or  Europe,  that  was  in  a  state  of  arrested  devel¬ 
opment?  Probably  Marco  Polo  thought  the  latter. 

Because  it  is  all  changed  now  in  most  countries  of 
the  world,  we  are  not  to  abuse  thoughtlessly  the  men 
of  different  minds  in  old  days,  or  judge  them  by  the 
moral  standards  of  to-day.  It  is  only  by  putting  out 
of  our  minds  the  present  ruling  ideas  and  entering 
into  “  the  spirit  of  the  age  ”  in  which  they  lived,  that 
we  can  do  them  justice,  even  while  grateful  for  those 
who,  seeing  beyond  the  immediate  troubles,  were 
faithful  to  their  intelligent  convictions. 


CHAPTER  II 
WHO  WERE  THE  WALLOONS? 

On  the  islands  of  the  Manhattan  archipelago,  and  at 
places  along  the  Hudson  and  Delaware  rivers,  the 
Walloons  made  their  settlements,  beginning  in  1624. 
As  pious  and  high-souled  as  the  Pilgrims,  they  had 
on  board  their  vessel  a  church  officer,  who  led  song 
and  worship.  In  later  years,  thousands  more  of  these 
Belgian  people  came  over  in  the  ships.  Probably 
two  thirds  of  the  inhabitants  of  New  Netherland, 
called  “Dutch,”  were  from  the  southern  or  Belgic 
part  of  the  seventeen  provinces  —  Flemings  who 
spoke  Dutch  and  Walloons  whose  speech  was 
French;  but  all  held  the  Reformed  Christian  faith 
based  on  the  deathless  literature  found  in  the  Bible. 
In  religion,  the  “Walloons”  from  Belgium  and  the 
“Huguenots”  from  France  were  one,  as  were  the 
Pilgrims  and  Puritans. 

As  to  the  territory  of  the  Walloons,  in  the  politi¬ 
cal  shiftings  of  feudal  and  later  times,  part  of  it  was 
sometimes  in  France,  again  in  Belgium,  and  still 
again  in  France.  This  may  explain  why  the  spiritual 
life  of  Belgic  Walloons  and  French  Huguenots  was 
much  the  same. 

In  the  case  of  both  the  Pilgrim  and  the  Walloon, 
the  story  of  the  smaller  company  was  first  occulted 
and  then  lost  in  that  of  the  larger  body.  Myriads 

8 


WHO  WERE  THE  WALLOONS? 


can  be  seen  more  easily  than  hundreds  —  the  forest 
sooner  than  the  trees  —  but  now  the  story  of  both 
has  been  recovered  for  American  history,  while  in 
Holland  the  Walloon  story  never  was  lost.  In  1668, 
by  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  confirmed  in  1713 
by  that  of  Utrecht,  a  large  part  of  Walloon  Belgium, 
or  the  “ Spanish  Netherlands,”  was  ceded  to  France, 
and  from  this  district,  now  in  the  D6partement  du 
Nord,  came  a  large  part  of  the  Huguenot  emigration, 
which  after  this  date  helped  to  people  America. 

In  the  new  American  province  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public,  the  hardy  male  pioneers  who  fished  in  the 
waters,  or  with  the  Indians  bartered  trinkets  for 
furs,  guns,  and  textiles,  or  explored  the  land,  during 
the  fifteen  years  from  Henry  Hudson’s  time,  or  from 
1609  until  1624,  were  almost  wholly  Dutch.  They 
had  no  homes,  for  they  were  without  wives  or  chil¬ 
dren,  nor  did  they  till  the  soil.  They  made  money 
and  maps,  and  one,  whose  name  is  in  Cape  May, 
New  Jersey,  built  a  small  ship  called  the  Onrust,  or 
Restless.  It  was  a  hunter  and  swift-goer,  or,  in  Dutch, 
a  “yacht.”  Some  lived  in  huts  over  a  winter,  and 
even,  it  may  be,  that  men  with  wives  and  children 
made  brief  visits,  but  they  did  not  have  homes,  or¬ 
chards,  fields,  gardens,  cattle,  poultry,  or  title  to  the 
land.  No  guaranteed  legal  land  tenure  or  ownership 
of  the  soil  was  possible  until  after  the  West  India 
Company  was  formed  in  1621. 

The  Walloons  made  of  the  wilderness  a  new  home 
land.  They  did  not  call  themselves  at  first  “Wal- 

9 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


loons.”  This  was  the  term  applied  to  them  when 
they  had  lived  in  a  foreign  land.  It  was  as  with  the 
“Pilgrim  Fathers,”  who  were  never  so  called  until 
the  year  1797.  A  foreigner  in  Antwerp,  the  English¬ 
man  Gresham  (ancestor  of  our  former  Secretary  of 
State)  in  1567,  first  in  the  English  language,  spoke 
of  “the  Vallons.” 

These  people  were  probably  among  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  the  Belgae,  of  whose  ancestors  Caesar,  the  Ro¬ 
man  general,  tells  us.  He  declared  that  they  were 
the  bravest  of  all  the  tribes.  They  were  proud  of  be¬ 
ing  one  of  the  oldest  people  in  northern  Europe.  On 
the  first  official  seal  used  on  New  York  soil,  we  read 
Sigillum  Novi  Belgii,  and  [Terra]  Nova  Belgica  was 
the  name  of  the  new  land.  Both  Batavia  (meaning 
better  land),  and  Belgica,  or  Belgium,  were  used 
much  as  we  use  the  word  “Columbia”  for  America. 

The  settlement  on  Manhattan,  which  means  “a 
place  between  two  rivers,”  was  called  by  them, 
though  never  officially,  New  Avesnes  or  Avennes, 
the  birthplace  of  their  leader,  Jesse  de  Forest.  More¬ 
over,  the  first  language  spoken  in  the  homes  of 
Distinctive  America,  or  the  Middle  Region,  was 
French.  We  shall  tell  about  the  adventures  of  the 
Walloons  of  America  in  this  book;  but  first  we  shall 
look  at  them  on  their  native  soil  and  learn  of  their 
flight  and  fortunes  in  several  lands,  and  how  they 
got  across  the  Atlantic.  Environment  dictated  their 
development  through  the  centuries,  but  heredity 
showed  what  was  in  them  to  do.  Their  history  is 


10 


WHO  WERE  THE  WALLOONS? 


well  worthy  of  study.  From  the  Walloons  in  the 
Belgium  of  to-day,  these  early  makers  of  New  York 
differed  chiefly  in  matters  of  conscience. 

Take  the  map  of  Belgium  and  draw  a  line  from 
west  to  east,  through  Brussels.  South  of  this  are 
the  provinces  of  Hainault,  Namur,  Luxembourg, 
and  Liege.  These  are  called  the  Walloon  provinces, 
or,  of  late,  “Walloonia” ;  for  now  the  people  and  the 
government  have  accepted  and  are  proud  of  the 
name,  just  as  we  are  of  that  of  the  once  unknown 
“Pilgrim  Fathers.”  The  name  Walloon,  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Waal  (inner  or  turbulent) 
River,  or  the  imaginary  single  province  of  “Wal¬ 
loonia,”  helps  us  to  distinguish  these  people  from 
the  Flemings,  of  the  northern  half  of  Belgium  —  the 
country  which  has  two  races,  two  languages,  two 
centers  of  industry,  two  landscapes,  and  two  varie¬ 
ties  of  religion.  To-day  the  old  Walloon  district  in¬ 
cludes  also  the  Departement  du  Nord  in  France, 
which  was  once  part  of  Belgium. 

Yet  from  the  first  beginnings  of  language,  the 
root-word  wal ,  with  its  variations  in  spelling  and 
pronunciation,  meant  alien,  stranger,  foreigner. 
The  Romans  called  all  the  northern  people  by  such  a 
word  (Wealsh  or  Welsh),  even  as  the  Germans  so 
speak  of  the  Italians  to  this  day.  In  Belgic  Land, 
while  “the  Franks  settled  in  the  North,  the  Roman¬ 
ized  Celts  or  ‘  Walas  ’  occupied  the  South.”  Later  on 
when  church  dioceses  were  formed,  men  spoke  of  the 
“Walas”  and  “Dietschen”  —  Celts  and  Germans. 


ii 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


When  we  look  further  into  the  use  of  this  root  word, 
we  find  it  not  only  in  Switzerland  in  the  canton  of 
Wallis,  in  the  Netherlands  in  the  island  of  Wal- 
cheren,  in  Britain  applied  to  the  Cymric  Land  of 
Wales,  but  we  also  discern  it  in  hundreds  of  English 
and  American  place-names,  such  as  Walton,  Wal¬ 
lingford,  etc.  In  Dutch,  to  say  of  a  man  “he  speaks 
Waalsch”  (Welsh)  means  he  is  a  Walloon,  or  he 
speaks  French. 

This  division  of  Belgium  means  more,  also,  than 
in  race  and  speech.  The  Flemings  are  farmers,  the 
Walloons  are  mechanics.  North  Belgium  is  agricul¬ 
tural,  South  Belgium  is  industrial.  At  Louvain,  the 
traveler  bids  good-bye,  once  for  all,  to  everything 
Flemish.  The  town  halls  and  cathedrals,  that  is, 
civic  and  religious  architecture,  are  not  in  the  same 
style.  The  scenery  is  different.  Flanders  is  flat;  the 
Walloon  country  is  rich  in  hills.  To  live  in  Louvain 
and  in  Ghent  is  much  like  dwelling  in  two  worlds. 
The  peasant  from  Hainault  when  in  Flanders  is  in  a 
foreign  land,  nor  can  he  feel  at  home.  Brussels,  the 
capital  in  Brabant,  is  the  meeting  place  of  language 
and  race.  Into  it  the  riches  of  north  and  south  are 
poured.  This  city  is  a  smaller  Paris. 

Yet  both  Walloons  and  Flemings  are  intensely 
patriotic,  for  they  have  been  united  in  one  nation  for 
over  five  hundred  years.  They  have  the  same  kind  of 
money,  they  follow  the  same  way  of  living,  and  are 
proud  of  their  history.  Instead  of  being  ground  to 
powder  between  the  two  millstones  of  France  and 


12 


WHO  WERE  THE  WALLOONS*? 


Germany,  the  Belgians  have  never  been  wholly 
crushed. 

How  much  of  the  Teutonic  strain  is  mixed  in  that 
of  the  Walloon  is  a  question  probably  never  to  be 
settled.  Many  foolish  notions  persist  and  theories 
have  been  spun  from  the  exaggeration  of  the  orig¬ 
inal  race  element  or  subsequent  admixture  in  the 
Walloon.  The  astonishing  thing  is  that  these  two 
races  and  languages  have  remained  intractable  to  all 
attempts  to  mix  them;  yet  in  friendliness  and  even 
in  patriotism  the  Belgians  have  ever  been  one,  thus 
furnishing  a  noble  example  to  mankind  in  general 
and  a  rebuke  to  all  who  hate  “  foreigners/' 

Nine  tenths  of  the  real  or  imaginary  divisions  or 
estrangements  noticeable  in  their  history  have  had 
little  or  nothing  to  do  with  language,  nor  were  they 
racial,  but  almost  wholly  economic.  In  fact,  as  a 
rule,  foreigners  exaggerate  the  ethnic  and  linguistic 
divisions,  while  native  historians,  like  Perrine,  show 
us  the  reality.  The  last  signal  attempt  to  separate 
Walloon  and  Fleming  —  to  rend  a  nation  asunder  — 
by  an  appeal  to  race  and  language,  was  made  by  the 
invaders  of  1914.  Like  all  previous  similar  efforts  to 
destroy  Belgium,  it  failed  miserably.  There  was  an 
eternal  Belgium  long  before  1830. 

The  most  interesting  part  of  Belgic  Land  to  the 
tourist  is  in  the  North,  the  most  beautiful  scenery  in 
the  South.  For  nearly  a  thousand  years,  there  have 
been  three  industrial  centers  —  of  textiles,  of  metal 
working,  and  of  trade;  that  is,  Flanders,  Walloon 

13 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Land,  and  Antwerp  —  each  excelling  in  its  special 
products. 

Why  did  so  many  of  the  southern  Belgians,  from 
1567,  leave  their  beautiful  land?  Why,  but  for  con¬ 
science’  sake  and  loyalty  to  the  Highest!  In  Eng¬ 
land,  they  were  treated  rather  roughly  by  the  ap¬ 
prentices  and  workmen,  who  were  jealous  of  their 
superior  abilities  in  craftsmanship.  Borrowing  the 
word  from  the  Dutch,  these  Englishmen  called  them 
“foreigners”  —  “wall”  meaning  alien  and  “oon” 
meaning  one,  that  is,  a  foreign  fellow,  a  stranger. 
They  were  twitted  with  leaving  their  country  and 
not  fighting  hard  to  defend  it.  Yet  an  American  en¬ 
gineer  and  soldier  —  one  of  the  million  or  more  de¬ 
scendants  of  the  first  Walloons  in  New  York —  has 
given  his  judgment  that  the  Belgic  or  Walloon  region 
is  not  militarily  defensible. 

Belgium  has  no  great  natural  frontiers.  Her  ter¬ 
ritory  is  open  on  all  sides.  Nevertheless,  for  half  a 
millennium  the  dragons,  whether  French,  or  Ger¬ 
man,  or  Dutch,  have  failed  to  swallow  her.  Every 
one  of  the  numerous  wars  and  invasions,  even  down 
to  1914,  has  confirmed  the  American  engineer’s  opin¬ 
ion.  After  millions  spent  on  General  Brialmont’s 
system  of  fortifications,  the  Germans  took  both  the 
Li£ge  and  Antwerp  forts.  Of  all  Belgium,  the  Wal¬ 
loon  portion  has  usually  been  the  most  devastated. 

The  first  martyrs,  in  the  new  era  of  Bible  study, 
two  young  monks,  Esch  and  Voes,  were  burned 
alive,  in  the  public  square  in  Brussels.  The  Wal- 

14 


WHO  WERE  THE  WALLOONS? 

loons  are  very  quick  to  catch  a  new  idea,  and  hence 
they  promptly  welcomed  the  Reformation ;  but 
when  death  was  pronounced  against  them,  by  the 
royal  Spaniard  in  the  Escurial,  the  order  to  change 
their  ways  of  thinking  came  so  suddenly  that  they 
had  neither  the  time  nor  the  power  of  defense. 
Against  the  large  and  finely  disciplined  and  equipped 
army  of  Alva  that  in  1567  invaded  their  country, 
they  were  helpless. 

The  men  of  the  new  mind  wanted  to  read  the 
Book  of  books.  Philip  II  and  his  bishops  said :  “  No, 
you  cannot,  you  must  think  as  we  think,  worship  as 
we  worship,  and  read  only  what  we  permit  you;  or 
we  shall  drive  you  out  of  the  land,  or  kill  you.” 
Hence  the  flight  and  dispersion  of  the  Huguenot  Wal¬ 
loons  in  all  the  countries  of  the  Reformation,  from 
Sweden  to  Russia,  in  South  Africa  and  South  Amer¬ 
ica,  and  in  the  Dutch  and  English  colonies  of  North 
America. 

In  our  day  and  country,  people  can  think  and  read 
what  books  they  please,  and  worship  God  in  their 
own  way,  too,  if  they  obey  the  law.  But  three  cen¬ 
turies  ago,  it  was  the  general  custom  with  most 
governments,  heathen,  Confucian,  Mahometan,  and 
Christian,  to  imprison,  hang,  burn,  or  behead  people 
of  the  other  party.  So  long  as  the  lust  of  power, 
place,  and  pelf  rules  in  men’s  minds,  this  will  be  so; 
for  men  hide  their  animal  passions  under  the  cloak 
of  religion.  History  shows  that  in  any  age  and  coun¬ 
try,  all  over  the  world,  those  who  claim  to  be  vicars 

15 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

of  God,  and  have  the  power,  will  persecute.  History 
also  shows  that  in  most  cases  “ orthodoxy”  means 
success  and  “ heresy”  defeat.  Grant  the  first  pre¬ 
mise,  of  monopoly  of  authority  from  Heaven  or  God, 
given  to  persons,  parties,  or  corporations,  and  all 
their  claims  logically  follow,  whether  in  Asia,  Europe, 
or  Africa. 

Philip  II  of  Spain,  who  had  terrible  quarrels  also 
with  the  Pope,  thought  he  was  serving  God  when  he 
sent  the  Duke  of  Alva  to  behead  nobles,  whether  of 
the  old  or  the  new  form  of  the  faith,  to  hang  inno¬ 
cent  people,  to  confiscate  their  property,  and  to  de¬ 
populate  and  desolate  the  land.  At  his  proceedings 
we  shalljook,  while  we  tell  the  story  of  the  Walloons. 
If  we  know  what  happened  in  the  past  and  learn  the 
story  of  human  progress,  we  shall  be  all  the  more 
thankful  for  the  country  and  the  times  in  which  we 
live.  We  shall  understand  all  the  better  our  own  his¬ 
tory  and  government,  for  even  nations  and  the  whole 
human  race  are  pilgrims  ever  marching  onward 
and,  though  with  many  a  setback,  moving  forward. 
“The  dogs  bark,  but  the  caravan  moves  on.”  That 
is  the  picture  of  human  progress. 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW  THE  NATIONS  OF  EUROPE  WERE  FORMED 

Europe  is  the  magic  mirror  whose  history  reveals  to 
us  our  own  national  story.  The  struggle  for  liberty 
in  America  was  but  that  of  adjournment  from  the 
old  to  the  new  continent.  Even  the  American  Revo¬ 
lution,  rightly  interpreted,  is  but  one  of  the  glories 
of  English  history. 

In  our  age  of  the  world,  when  we  speak  of  French¬ 
men,  Germans,  Italians,  British,  Dutch,  or  Belgians, 
we  think  also  of  certain  countries  on  the  map,  with 
boundaries,  with  the  people  in  each  as  speaking  a 
particular  language,  and  usually  one  language  only. 
Besides  this,  in  a  general  way  we  all  picture  to  our¬ 
selves  the  kind  of  a  man  he  is  whom  we  call  a  Brit¬ 
isher,  a  Dane,  a  Swede,  a  Frenchman,  an  Italian,  or 
a  Russian. 

In  a  similar  way  even  in  our  country  we  think  of 
New  England  and  Yankees,  of  the  South  and  South¬ 
erners,  of  the  Middle  West,  the  Far  West,  and  the 
Pacific  slope,  and  the  people  in  these  sections.  The 
United  States  being  as  large  as  Europe,  we  divide 
also  the  time.  So  we  have  for  our  railroads  Eastern, 
Central,  Western,  and  Mountain  time.  We  are  vo¬ 
ciferous  in  shouting  “  Progress”  as  a  battle-cry,  yet 
this  idea  of. progress  is  a  modern  one.  Those  who 

17 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


three  or  four  centuries  ago  urged  it  were  under  ban 
as  heretics  and  malefactors. 

A  thousand  years  ago  even  the  idea  of  nationality 
was  but  faintly  apprehended  in  Europe,  and  we  may 
say  much  the  same  of  the  different  literatures  and 
boundaries.  Nor  were  most  of  the  words  which  now 
describe  the  great  nations  and  peoples  in  use,  or  even 
conceived  of.  Most  persons  never  went  more  than  a 
few  miles  from  home.  It  was  only  in  war  time,  or  for 
commerce,  that  a  few  Europeans  moved.  In  the  Far 
East,  however,  travelers  had  the  magnetic  compass 
and  used  it  on  land  and  sea.  Sailors  ploughed  the 
ocean  and  caravans  traversed  mountains  and  plains. 
What  most  of  our  books  call  “the  history  of  the 
world’ ’  refers  almost  wholly  to  countries  around  the 
Mediterranean  —  the  very  name  of  which  exposes 
the  ignorance  of  ages. 

The  inhabitants  of  middle  and  northern  Europe 
had  been  from  very  early  time  wandering  tribes  of 
savages,  or  barbarians.  The  civilized  peoples  were 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  who  dwelt  along  the  Medi¬ 
terranean,  or  Middle-Earth  Sea.  The  Romans,  in 
their  course  of  kingdom,  republic,  and  empire,  dur¬ 
ing  twelve  hundred  years,  pushed  their  way  north  as 
far  as  the  Rhine  river  and  in  Britain  almost  to  Scot¬ 
land.  In  large  measure  the  Roman  Empire  thrust 
itself  between  the  tribal  emigrations,  stopped  their 
wanderings,  and,  until  the  fifth  Christian  century, 
kept  them  in  check.  Then  the  northern  barbarians 
• — the  “Waalsch”  —  who  already  composed  over 

18 


HOW  THE  NATIONS  WERE  FORMED 


half  of  the  soldiers  and  slaves,  destroyed  the  Empire. 
Thus  Rome  fell,  as  much  from  internal  decay  as  from 
external  attack. 

For  several  hundred  years,  until  the  ninth  cen¬ 
tury,  there  were  hordes,  clans,  and  tribes  moving 
about,  fighting,  conquering,  and  settling  in  new 
lands  and  upon  other  people’s  territory,  but  there 
were  not  as  yet  the  states  and  their  boundaries  with 
which  we  are  familiar  on  the  map. 

The  man  who,  after  the  ruined  Roman  Empire, 
tried  to  unify  Europe  by  restoring  order  was  Char¬ 
lemagne;  that  is,  Carolus  Magnus,  or  Charles  the 
Great,  of  Walloon  Land.  Born  in  the  Belgic  village 
of  Herestal,  in  the  year  742,  he  lived  until  a.d.  814. 
His  model,  the  only  one  he  thought  possible,  was  in 
the  past;  but  the  name  of  the  new  political  structure 
was  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  For  seven  centuries 
onward,  the  two  great  forces  shaping  history  were 
Papal  and  Imperial,  Pope  and  Emperor,  the  Church 
and  the  Empire. 

To  most  of  the  tribes  in  northern  Europe  that  still 
worshiped  gods,  whose  names  are  recalled  in  the 
days  of  the  week,  Charlemagne  was  like  a  hammer. 
He  made  of  them  what  were  called  “Christians,”  by 
first  overcoming  them  in  battle  and  then  driving 
them  by  thousands,  at  the  point  of  the  spear,  into 
the  rivers  to  be  “baptized.”  Then,  accepting  the 
faith,  they  were  at  least  churchmen,  if  not  follow¬ 
ers  of  Jesus.  To  accomplish  his  purpose,  he  trans¬ 
planted  colonies  of  them  along  the  North  Sea, 

19 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


whither  others  had  fled  before  his  arms,  and  so  were 
called  “fleemings”  or  Flemings. 

On  Christmas  Day,  a.d.  800,  Charlemagne  was  in 
Rome,  and  the  Bishop  of  that  city  —  the  Papa  or 
Pope  —  placed  a  crown  on  the  warrior’s  head.  This 
signified  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  the  joining 
of  spiritual  and  temporal  power;  which  meant,  in 
practice,  that  Christianity  could  be  propagated  by 
force,  like  Mahometanism.  This  act  and  what  fol¬ 
lowed  logically  from  it  directly  reversed  the  Found¬ 
er’s  teaching. 

From  this  time,  the  sword  and  battle-axe  and  the 
shepherd’s  crook,  or  crozier,  went  together.  “The 
Holy  Roman  Empire”  influenced  European  politics 
for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  The  underlying  idea 
was  that  the  “whole  world  ”  —  of  which  only  a  small 
portion  was  known  in  Europe  —  belonged  to  all  who 
were  churchmen,  or  “Christians.”  The  “heathen” 
had  no  rights  which  rulers  or  people  called  Chris¬ 
tians  were  bound  to  respect.  This  great  religious 
corporation  in  Italy  compelled  kings  and  emperors 
to  obey  its  decrees.  In  spirit,  it  was  as  far  as  possible 
from  what  the  Founder  said,  when  He  declared  be¬ 
fore  the  Roman  governor,  “My  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world;  if  my  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then 
would  my  servants  fight.”  As  to  the  length  of  its 
existence,  Charlemagne’s  has  been  well  called  a 
“mushroom  empire.”  Its  story  was  soon  told. 

As  used  in  European  politics,  the  idea  that  Church 
and  State  were  one  has  been  above  all  others  the 


20 


HOW  THE  NATIONS  WERE  FORMED 

cause  of  innumerable  wars  arid  bloodshed.  For  five 
or  more  centuries  this  dogma,  almost  unchallenged, 
except  here  and  there  by  sects,  ruled  the  European 
nations  in  their  evolution.  It  taught  that  the  ruler 
of  a  country,  or  the  local  magistrate,  had  a  right  to 
lord  it  over  the  conscience,  and  that  the  State  could 
dictate  the  religion.  From  this  grew  up  the  motto, 
when  Latin  was  the  common  language  of  the  learned 
and  of  rulers  and  documents,  cujus  regio,  ejus  religio; 
that  is,  whose  is  the  region,  his  is  the  religion.  He 
who  governed  the  country  could  say  what  people 
were  to  think  and  believe.  So  in  France  and  Bel¬ 
gium,  “the  King's  religion"  was  held  to  be  the  only 
real  one,  while  that  based  on  the  Bible  was  officially 
dubbed  the  “Pretended  Reformed  Religion.” 

Moreover,  the  king,  or  governor,  could  carry  out 
his  will  by  force,  fire,  and  sword,  even  dealing  out 
death  to  the  men  who  did  their  own  thinking.  Such 
a  system  was  at  the  antipodes  of  what  Jesus  taught, 
“My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.” 

Rome  was  thought  to  be  the  center  of  the  (flat) 
earth.  Hence  all  authority  must  proceed  from  the 
city  on  the  Tiber,  where  the  capital  of  the  Roman 
Empire  had  been.  This  was  exactly  like  the  Chinese 
dogma  of  Whang  Ti,  which  supposed  that  the  Em¬ 
peror  of  China  was  God's  vicar  and  the  Chinese  na¬ 
tion  was  the  most  civilized  in  all  the  earth,  and  that 
all  authority,  spiritual  and  temporal,  must  proceed 
from  the  capital.  Hence  the  long-continued  perse¬ 
cutions  in  China,  which  the  great  Dutch  scholar, 


21 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


de  Groot,  has  revealed  to  us.  Both  forms  of  the; 
same  notion,  Chinese  and  Roman,  which  invaria¬ 
bly  meant  persecution,  are  now  perhaps  becoming 
obsolete,  though  they  are  still  a  menace  to  ordered 
freedom. 

Such  a  system  seemed  necessary  in  the  days 
of  darkness  and  ignorance,  when  only  monks  and 
priests  could  read  and  write,  and  when  the  Church 
did  a  mighty  work  in  unifying  and  instructing  the 
nations.  General  education  was  not  as  yet  thought 
of,  and  the  Bible  was  unknown  to  the  masses.  In  our 
time,  with  free  public  schools,  such  a  doctrine  is  so 
far  out  of  date  that  it  is  only  by  isolating  people  from 
infancy  and  filling  their  minds  with  ideas  unknown 
in  the  Book  of  books,  that  such  a  monopoly  of  reli¬ 
gion  can  be  perpetuated.  We  shall  see  what  forces 
broke  up  this  one  of  the  several  feudal  systems,  and 
brought  in  the  new  age  which  we  enjoy. 

When  Charles  the  Great  died,  in  814,  he  had  no 
son  who  was  capable  of  ruling  the  vast  realm;  but 
in  the  third  generation  there  were  three  grandsons, 
who  agreed  to  divide  the  empire,  each  taking  an 
equal  portion.  The  ceremonies  of  partition,  with 
the  sacred  oaths,  sworn  to  by  each  of  the  three 
princes,  were  solemnized  in  a.d.  843,  at  a  place  in 
France  called  Verdun  —  the  same  where,  over  a 
thousand  years  later,  the  waves  of  German  invasion 
were  rolled  back  in  defeat. 

The  scope  of  this  mediaeval  compact  included 
even  more  than  geography  and  politics.  From  this 


22 


HOW  THE  NATIONS  WERE  FORMED 


date,  the  languages,  the  literatures,  the  nations,  and 
the  modern  states  began  to  form  and  their  bounda¬ 
ries  to  be  fixed.  Roughly  speaking,  the  West  was 
France,  the  East,  Germany.  The  central  state,  made 
up  of  the  border  lands  of  western  Europe,  extended 
from  the  English  Channel  to  Italy.  It  included  Bel- 
gic  Land,  and  was  named  the  Kingdom  of  Lothair,  or 
Lotharingia.  Henceforth,  in  history,  we  recognize 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians,  Spaniards,  English¬ 
men,  etc. 

Nor  in  the  category  of  European  nationalities 
can  Belgium  —  “the great  little  country”  —  be  left 
out,  nor  the  Belgians  be  ignored ;  for  no  other  coun¬ 
try  has  survived  greater  changes  and  the  attempts 
of  many  mighty  potentates  to  absorb  or  destroy 
her.  The  short-lived  Kingdom  of  Lothair,  formed 
by  the  Verdun  Compact  of  a.d.  843,  between  France 
and  Germany,  still  lives  in  Belgium,  as  the  barrier 
between  France  and  Germany,  for  the  good  of  civ¬ 
ilization. 

Even  from  Roman  times  nature  assisted.  The 
Coal  Forest,  stretching  from  east  to  west  across  the 
entire  country,  broke  the  invaders’  efforts  and  en¬ 
abled  Belgic  Land  to  gain  an  independence  she  has 
kept  —  despite  occasional  loss  of  sovereignty  —  as 
“the  last  fragment  of  the  great  empire  of  Lothair.” 

In  a  large  sense,  the  political  movements  of  hu¬ 
man  society  are  like  the  pendulum  of  a  clock.  They 
swing  first  toward  unity  and  then  separation ;  in  the 
direction  of  empire  and  again  of  self-determination. 

23 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Centralization  and  independence  make  up  the  story 
of  nations  equally  in  Asia  and  in  Europe. 

From  the  ninth  century,  European  society  was 
formed  on  a  new  basis,  which  was  neither  Roman 
nor  barbarian,  but  feudal.  Feudalism  was  as  a  great 
school,  and  most  of  the  nations  went  through  its  long 
discipline.  Its  moral  foundation  was  the  law  of  con¬ 
tract,  of  mutual  obligation. 

This  system  of  society,  based  on  land  tenure, 
changed  the  landscape,  giving  new  edifices,  such  as 
the  castle,  monastery,  tithe-barn,  with  village  unity 
of  crafts,  and  the  cathedral,  in  which  all  spiritual  life 
centered.  The  knight  and  man-at-arms,  the  monk 
and  friar  were  the  two  outstanding  types  of  superior 
men  above  the  masses.  They  were  looked  upon  as 
the  models,  which  fathers  and  mothers  wanted  their 
sons  to  copy.  Although  the  prelates  lorded  it  over 
the  common  people,  the  Church,  in  the  main,  was 
the  nurse  of  democracy ;  for  any  boy  could  become  a 
monk,  a  priest,  a  bishop,  or  a  pope,  although  in  later 
times  the  papacy  became  in  the  main  an  Italian 
monopoly. 

Yet  besides  the  shaping  of  nations  and  countries 
in  both  their  boundaries  and  their  interior  constitu¬ 
tions,  through  the  human  hand  and  brain,  we  must 
not  forget  those  influences  of  nature  which  are  pow¬ 
erful  and  continuous.  As  there  are  several  theories  in 
philosophy  and  theology  as  to  the  genesis  or  geneal¬ 
ogy  of  the  human  soul  —  apart  from  the  body  —  so 
there  are  sound  and  unsound  theories  as  to  the  orb 

24  . 


«  HOW  THE  NATIONS  WERE  FORMED 


gin,  causes,  and  continuous  reason  for  the  existence 
of  Belgium  and  the  two  types  of  humanity  within 
her  borders.  Cloquet,  in  strongly  arguing,  as  against 
Maeterlinck,  that  the  Walloon  genius  has  been  richly 
productive  of  painters,  as  well  as  sculptors  and  archi¬ 
tects,  tells  us  that  “in  the  old  Italian  writings  we 
find  the  term  flamminge  Vallone  (Flemish-Walloon) 
which  well  characterizes  the  confusion  which  re¬ 
sults  from  mixing  indiscriminately  the  reputation 
of  the  two  races.’ ’ 

Lest  the  body  and  soul  of  Belgium  be  imagined  to 
be  but  a  patchwork,  made  on  the  green  baize  table 
of  European  congresses  and  diplomatists,  let  us,  with 
Emile  Cammaerts,  look  at  the  efficiency  of  unwea¬ 
ried  nature  in  producing  di-ethnic  and  bi-lingual  Bel¬ 
gium,  which  is  among  the  oldest  of  nations. 

During  the  period  from  the  Roman  occupation  to 
the  era  of  the  Crusades,  one  notable  change  was 
made  in  the  landscape,  which  profoundly  affected 
government,  language,  social  development,  and  both 
local  and  international  politics.  It  fixed  perma¬ 
nently  the  dualism  of  race  and  speech.  It  stereotyped 
what  is  most  peculiar  to  bi-lingual  and  di-ethnic  Bel¬ 
gium.  Side  by  side,  but  immiscible,  are  the  Walloons 
and  Flemings. 

By  a  paradox,  the  long,  slow,  gradual,  almost 
imperceptible  process  of  removal  or  deforestation, 
while  it  made  permanent  separation  of  speech  and 
blood,  developed  a  national  consciousness,  uniting 
the  two  ethnic  elements  into  one  people  and  awaken- 

25 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


in g  patriotism.  The  Charcoal  Forest,  which  the  Ro¬ 
mans  never  penetrated  and  around  which  their  roads 
ran  east  and  west,  whether  living  or  eliminated,  has 
determined  the  history  of  the  Belgians. 

The  Latin  world  rulers  divided  their  northern 
conquests  between  the  Seine  and  the  Rhine  into 
Belgia  Secunda  —  that  is,  Lower  Belgium,  in  which 
was  the  hill  region  of  the  Ardennes  and  the  great 
Silva  Carbonaria,  or  Charcoal  Forest  —  and  Ger¬ 
mania  Inferior.  The  Roman  highroad  ran  north  of 
the  great  woods  from  Cologne  to  Arras  and  west¬ 
ward  even  to  the  Seine.  The  invading  Franks  settled 
in  the  North,  the  Romanized  Celts  or  “Walas” 
(Walloons)  occupied  the  South. 

This  Charcoal  Forest  extended  all  the  way  over 
the  distance  which  the  great  highway  traversed. 
The  Romans  made  use  of  the  iron  in  the  mines  and 
improved  the  art  of  smelting  the  ore,  manipulating 
the  metal  by  using  charcoal.  Hence  the  name  they 
gave  to  the  forest,  which  neither  they  of  old  nor,  at 
first,  even  the  Franks  penetrated.  It  served  to  iso¬ 
late  the  Walloons.  In  the  later  onslaughts  of  the 
Germanic  tribes,  the  natives  found  shelter  and  de¬ 
fense  in  this  wood’s  recesses. 

Parallel  in  both  time  and  space,  in  Britain  the 
Teutonic  tribes  drove  the  natives  westward  into  the 
Cymric  forests  and  then  called  them  by  the  same 
name,  Walas,  or  Welsh ;  that  is,  foreigners.  Geology 
and  history  clasp  hands.  The  same  rocks  form  alike 
the  hills  of  the  Ardennes  and  the  mountains  of  Wales. 

26 


HOW  THE  NATIONS  WERE  FORMED 


In  time,  however,  the  last  waves  of  Teutonic  pa¬ 
ganism  “spent  their  force  along  that  leafy  barrier 
which  saved  Christianity  and  Roman  civilization 
and  incidentally  gave  the  Belgian  nation  its  most 
prominent  and  interesting  character.  The  singsong 
of  a  Walloon  sentence  may  thus  suggest  the  rustling 
of  the  leaves  and  the  piping  of  the  early  birds,  while 
the  more  guttural  accents  of  a  Flemish  name  remind 
us  of  the  war  cry  of  wild  hordes  and  the  beating  of 
lances.” 

It  was  the  cutting  down  of  this  forest,  first  on  its 
western  and  southern  sides,  while  the  northern  and 
eastern  flanks  remained  comparatively  untouched 
for  centuries,  that  brought  the  Walloons  into  closer 
intimacy  with  the  Franks.  By  speech  and  common 
intellectual  and  economic  interests,  the  French  and 
Southern  Belgians  were  thus  linked  together  in  the 
same  aims  and  interests. 

Yet  before  fire  and  the  axe  had  erased  from  the 
landscape  the  Coal  Forest,  the  Walloons  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Liege  had  early  in  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury  become  famous  all  over  Europe  for  their  skill 
and  varied  craftsmanship  chiefly  in  iron,  but  notably 
in  other  metals.  This  reputation  they  have  never 
lost,  and  we  shall,  in  our  narrative,  see  to  whom  and 
what  Sweden  owes  her  wealth  in  iron. 


CHAPTER  IV 
HOW  ASIA  ENRICHED  EUROPE 

In  modern  electric  science,  by  the  use  of  the  alter¬ 
nating  current,  men  have  accomplished  great  results, 
while  it  has  revealed  wondrous  possibilities.  In  hu¬ 
man  history,  also,  we  discern  a  stream  of  mutual 
benefit  flowing  from  the  pendulum-like  motions  of 
advance  and  retreat,  as  the  civilizations  of  East  and 
West  touch  each  other.  Some  see  only  the  clash  of 
war,  or  what  are  apparently  the  evil  results;  others 
behold  beneficent  reactions.  In  its  frequent  recur¬ 
rent  devastations  and  re-creations,  Belgium’s  his¬ 
tory  seems  like  an  alternating  current. 

In  what  we  call  the  Middle  Ages  there  were  two 
great  waves  of  movement  and  enterprise,  both  of 
them  notable  for  their  influence  on  the  whole  race. 
The  first  was  westward  and  the  second  eastward,  and 
by  these  both  of  the  two  continents  and  great  reli¬ 
gions  powerfully  affected  each  other.  These  series  of 
events  were  the  rise  of  Mahomet  and  the  Saracens, 
as  against  the  Crusades,  and  the  capture  of  Jerusa¬ 
lem  by  the  Crusaders.  In  the  campaigns  of  men 
fighting  under  the  crescent  and  the  cross,  Belgium 
had  a  notable  part,  for  like  Charlemagne,  Godfrey 
de  Bouillon,  King  of  Jerusalem,  was  from  Walloon 
Land. 

Through  these  movements,  men  of  different 

28 


HOW  ASIA  ENRICHED  EUROPE 


creeds,  races,  and  minds  became  acquainted  with 
each  other  and  with  the  world  in  which  they  lived. 
Out  of  Christian  knighthood  arose  chivalry  and  ro¬ 
mantic  love  between  man  and  woman.  Fine  man¬ 
ners  became  more  and  more  the  rule  of  life,  while  in 
the  homes  of  the  European  peoples,  especially  at  the 
seaports  and  in  large  cities,  and  in  the  houses,  or¬ 
chards,  and  gardens,  were  new  things  to  eat,  to  see, 
to  use,  to  wear,  and  to  enjoy,  which  had  come  from 
the  East.  Dress,  painting,  architecture,  manners, 
and  methods  of  business  were  all  affected  by  this 
mutual  contact  of  races.  To  what  extent  in  the  do¬ 
main  of  external  religion  there  was  mutual  borrow¬ 
ing  is  a  question,  but  it  is  certain  that  Buddhism 
and  the  Roman  form  of  Christianity  made  many 
exchanges. 

These  effects  are  notably  discernible  in  wall  paper, 
faience,  carpets,  tapestry,  and  oil  painting.  The 
wonderful  colors  of  the  Van  Eycks,  on  wood  and 
canvas,  were  suggested  by  the  Oriental  miniature 
paintings.  The  passion  of  the  East  is  decoration, 
that  of  the  West  form.  In  Belgium,  the  land  of  art, 
the  charms  of  both  were  blended.  Printing,  gun¬ 
powder,  porcelain,  wind-mills,  banks,  jewels,  pre¬ 
cious  stones,  falconry,  the  mariner's  compass,  and  a 
host  of  Asian  inventions  and  luxuries,  from  the  loom, 
the  garden,  the  orchard,  and  the  farm,  enriched 
Belgic  Land. 

The  stimulus  to  commerce  and  industry  was  im¬ 
mense.  New  trades  and  products  raised  the  stand- 

29 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


ard  of  living  in  both  the  castles  and  the  humbler 
dwellings.  Commerce  created  a  prosperity  that 
made  the  Belgic  Netherlands  the  richest  part  of  Eu¬ 
rope  and  the  envy  of  kings  and  nobles.  The  cloth, 
the  lace,  the  tapestry,  the  pictures,  both  woven  and 
painted,  the  stories  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  classics 
of  Greece  and  Rome  represented  on  canvas  and  in 
textiles,  became  famous  all  over  Europe  and  in  other 
lands  and  on  continents  afar. 

Hitherto  Asia,  the  Mother  Continent,  had  been 
much  wealthier  than  Europe,  for  most  of  the  inven¬ 
tions,  the  finer  things  of  life,  fruits  and  flowers, 
strange  birds  and  animals,  articles  of  food  and  drink, 
spices  and  condiments,  luxurious  clothing  and  other 
products  of  the  loom,  with  many  of  the  sports, 
amusements,  fairy  tales,  and  legends  now  common 
among  us,  came  from  India  or  China.  In  time,  tea, 
coffee,  and  the  whole  line  of  hot  drinks  adorned  the 
European  table  and  gave  woman  her  proper  place  at 
the  head  of  it.  Surprising  novelties  and  a  thousand 
wonders,  unknown  in  Europe  before,  seemed  to 
make  a  new  world. 

Before  the  Crusades,  these  novelties  had  been  for 
the  most  part  brought  overland  by  caravans.  It  is 
very  interesting  to  trace  out  on  the  map  the  old 
routes  of  travel.  At  the  ends  of  this  land  traffic,  in 
Italy  and  France,  immense  wealth  was  accumulated 
by  the  merchants  in  the  great  fairs.  It  was  mainly 
from  the  money  made  by  this  lucrative  land  com¬ 
merce  with  Asia,  together  with  the  sale  of  indul- 

30 


HOW  ASIA  ENRICHED  EUROPE 


gences,  that  those  miracles  of  human  genius,  the 
mighty  cathedrals  of  southern  and  central  Europe, 
were  reared. 

Two  series  of  events  changed  this  stream  of  wealth 
and  abolished  the  land  routes,  beginning  a  new  era  of 
trade  by  sea.  The  Italian  Marco  Polo  had  been  to 
China,  and  on  coming  back  told  of  its  vast  wealth 
and  high  state  of  civilization.  By  the  Chinese  mag¬ 
netic  needle,  used  as  the  mariner’s  compass,  men 
could  now  sail  out  of  sight  of  land  and  into  the  dis¬ 
tant  seas.  What  seemed  to  be  the  finger  of  God,  di¬ 
recting  them  how  and  where  to  go,  made  men  bolder 
and  led  to  the  discovery  of  new  routes  over  the  ocean 
to  the  rich  Indies,  Java,  China,  Korea,  and  Japan. 
Undreamed  of  forms  of  wealth,  like  tidal  waves, 
rolled  in  upon  southern  Europe. 

Then  followed  also  the  unveiling  of  continents 
and  the  discovery  of  America,  which  not  only  meant 
new  riches  to  Europe,  but  made  even  a  greater  gift 
to  the  human  imagination.  The  process  so  enlarged 
men’s  minds  that  boundless  possibilities  loomed.  In 
their  wonder  they  called  the  new  continent  the  New 
World. 

Humanity  had  gained  new  horizons.  The  earth 
seemed  made  over  again.  Western  Europe  learned 
also  about  Oriental  civilizations  and  of  another 
“Catholic”  Church,  which  used  the  Greek  instead 
of  the  Latin  language  in  worship  and  had  the  New 
Testament  in  the  tongue  of  the  apostles.  In  the 
Western  Church,  discipline  and  the  centralization  of 

3i 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

power  upheld  by  force  were  the  characteristics.  In 
the  Eastern  Church,  doctrine  and  philosophy  were 
the  prevailing  features.  The  Latin  and  the  Greek 
mind  worked  in  contrast. 

Compared  to  those  of  the  South,  the  northern 
countries  of  Europe  were  not  only  colder,  but  much 
poorer.  Something  now  happened  which  made  even 
England  and  Sweden  co-heirs  to  the  immeasurable 
good  fortune  which  contact  with  Asia  had  brought. 

In  1453,  the  Turks  captured  Constantinople.  Is¬ 
lam,  or  the  religion  of  Mahomet,  swept  even  into  In¬ 
dia  and  China.  After  this,  the  overland  trade  by 
caravans  ceased,  because  the  Turks  had  closed  the 
passage,  so  that  transit  from  the  Orient  to  Europe 
must  henceforth  be  by  sea.  Between  Bagdad  and 
China  were  high  mountains.  The  Arabs,  therefore, 
made  their  voyages  to  the  Far  East,  Java,  China, 
and  Korea  —  as  the  Arabic  geographer  Khordadbey 
records  —  in  ships.  We  have  also  the  record  of  the 
Chinese  fleet  sailing  in  1122  from  Ningpo  in  China 
to  Korea,  and  directing  its  course  by  the  magnetic 
compass.  It  was  during  the  Middle  Ages  that  Korea 
was  in  her  high  splendor  of  civilization,  while  Japan 
was  relatively  in  anarchy  and  barbarism.  This 
change  in  the  old  trade  routes  and  the  caravan 
business  had  at  first  brought  fleets  of  ships  and  the 
profits  of  Oriental  commerce  to  the  cities  along  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  pouring  into  the  lap  of  Florence, 
Rome,  and  the  ports  of  the  Italian  republics,  riches 
beyond  all  former  dreams ;  but  later,  it  was  the  mak- 

32 


HOW  ASIA  ENRICHED  EUROPE 


ing  of  Belgic  Land.  The  cities  of  Flanders  were  full 
of  weavers,  lace-  and  tapestry-makers,  besides  mer¬ 
chants  and  bankers  from  many  lands.  Later,  Ant¬ 
werp  became  the  chief  seaport  of  all  Europe  and  one 
of  the  richest  cities  in  the  world,  largely  because  of 
this  shifting  to  the  northward  of  the  trade  routes. 
Even  then,  without  the  submarine  cable,  or  radio, 
the  ends  of  the  earth  had  met. 

The  people  in  flax  land,  that  is,  the  Walloons,  prof¬ 
ited  also;  for  in  the  making  of  lace,  tapestry,  and 
linen  textiles,  flax,  one  of  a  thousand  gifts  of  Asia  to 
Europe,  was  of  the  first  importance.  In  the  spring¬ 
time  the  southern  provinces  seemed  to  mirror  the 
empyrean,  for  their  area  became  a  vast  field  of  blue 
flowers.  In  the  autumn,  thousands  of  stacks  of 
stalks,  each  one  filled  inside  with  the  glossy  silk-like 
fiber,  fed  thousands  of  looms  of  weavers;  or  the  sil¬ 
very  white  strands  lay  on  the  pillows  at  which  the 
lace-makers,  male  and  female,  were  constantly  busy. 
The  strands  used  in  the  finest  lace,  wrought  and 
workable  only  in  cold  and  darkness,  seemed  a  mirror 
of  the  history  of  Belgic  Land  —  so  often  the  home  of 
sorrows,  yet  so  many  times  again  rising  into  beauty 
and  glory. 

It  was  in  this  era  that  the  Walloons  became  fixed 
in  those  habits  of  industry,  amounting  almost  to  a 
passion,  for  which  they  are  proverbial  and  which  no 
wars  or  desolations  have  been  able  to  quench.  In  all 
the  centuries,  these  traits  have  stood  them  in  good 
stead.  In  every  case,  after  foreign  invasions,  the 

33 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


invincible  industry  of  ceaselessly  busy  men  and  of 
their  helpmates,  the  women,  have  conquered  their 
conquerors. 

Long  afterwards,  when  in  America,  it  was  the  in¬ 
herited  habits  of  their  descendants,  in  both  love  of 
work  and  the  saving  of  time,  that  made  the  wilder¬ 
ness  so  soon  to  blossom  and  the  soil  so  quickly  to 
laugh  with  new  flowers  and  luscious  fruits.  In  the 
assemblage  of  those  qualities  that  make  the  best 
type  of  American,  not  one  strain  of  humanity  has 
excelled  the  Huguenot  Walloon. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GLORIOUS  BURGUNDIAN  ERA 

The  era  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  (1384-1476),  rul¬ 
ers  of  the  Netherlands,  was  one  of  unification,  dur¬ 
ing  which  the  people  of  the  Low  Countries  attained 
national  consciousness.  It  was  the  era  also  of  the 
rise  of  the  communes  and  of  the  growth  of  cities. 

Leaving  out  the  history  of  Flanders,  or  the  North, 
and  confining  our  view  chiefly  to  the  South,  we  note 
the  general  commercial  prosperity  of  this  era;  es¬ 
pecially  since,  in  the  long  run,  it  was  industrialism 
and  commerce  which,  more  than  any  other  factors  in 
the  case,  broke  up  feudalism  —  their  own  particular 
form  of  which,  the  Burgundian  nobles  fondly  hoped 
would  last  forever. 

In  actual  fact,  the  dukes,  counts,  and  feudal  bar¬ 
ons  had  made  themselves  poor  in  the  Crusades, 
while  the  merchants  and  artisans  increased  in  wealth. 
They  bought  from  the  castle  lords  both  land  and 
privileges,  which  were  secured  by  being  written 
down  in  charters.  The  commoners  were  thus  able  to 
have  towns  and  cities,  to  build  walls  around  them, 
and  to  choose  their  own  rulers  and  soldiers,  and  so 
to  possess  rights  which  only  at  their  peril  the  lords 
of  the  land  might  attempt  to  seize,  annul,  or  dare 
to  trespass  upon.  In  time,  there  were  in  the  Low 

35 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Countries  over  two  hundred  of  what  were,  in  effect, 
city  republics. 

Yet  during  this  time,  the  wealthy  Netherlands 
were  coveted  by  the  potentates  of  Germany  and 
France,  whether  of  petty  degree  or  of  grand  preten¬ 
sions,  while  there  were  also  many  bloody  battles  be¬ 
tween  lords  and  vassals,  between  dukes  and  mechan¬ 
ics,  besides  frequent  struggles,  not  racial,  but  eco¬ 
nomic,  within  the  borders  of  Belgic  Land.  Victory 
was  at  times  on  one  side  and  again  on  the  other.  On  a 
field  of  carnage  and  corpses,  as  at  Courtrai,  in  1302, 
one  could  collect  hundreds  of  pairs  of  golden  spurs 
and  suits  of  armor  of  French  knights.  On  another, 
as  at  Roosebeke,  in  1382,  there  were  counted  thou¬ 
sands  of  pikestaffs  and  dead  men  in  common  clothes. 

The  communes  or  democratic  communities  arose 
from  men  determined  to  be  free,  yet  their  basis  was 
economic,  and  both  the  ideals  and  the  experience 
gained  through  centuries  by  certain  stable  represen¬ 
tative  governments  were  lacking.  For  permanent 
prosperity,  the  staple  article  they  needed  was  wool. 
This  product  of  the  sheep  was  raised  chiefly  in  Eng¬ 
land,  where  were  millions  of  lambs,  rams,  and  ewes, 
but  very  few  weavers,  and  most  of  these  had  come 
from  across  the  English  Channel.  Every  year  the 
wool  fleet  left  the  English  seaports  to  carry  over  the 
fleeces  and  bags  of  the  fiber  which,  transformed  by 
intelligence,  made  warmth  for  the  body  and  beauty 
to  the  eye. 

There  was  no  true  national  consciousness  among 

36  - 


THE  GLORIOUS  BURGUNDIAN  ERA 


the  Netherlanders  until  the  time  of  the  Burgundians, 
who  welded  the  seventeen  provinces  into  one  com¬ 
monwealth.  Besides  this,  these  dukes  were  in  one 
way  the  educators  of  Europe.  They  introduced  re¬ 
fined  manners  and  improved  society  in  all  the  courts 
of  Europe.  Instead  of  the  nobles  spending  their 
time  chiefly  in  jousts,  or  rough  exercises,  or  hunting 
the  wild  boar  and  deer  in  the  forests  —  which  then 
covered  the  land  from  the  Rhine  to  the  ocean  —  or 
carousing  in  their  castles,  the  feudal  lords  were  sum¬ 
moned  to  the  court  to  attend  upon  their  overlord, 
the  Duke.  They  were  thus  brought  near  the  culti¬ 
vated  ladies,  the  scholars,  the  poets  and  learned 
men.  This  was  a  sensible  proceeding  and  wrought 
much  good,  for  very  few  of  the  mediaeval  knights, 
who  in  war  wore  clothes  of  iron  and  leather  and  in 
peace  liked  rough  outdoor  life,  could  read  or  write. 

Apart  from  their  own  ambition  to  govern  with 
power  and  enjoy  the  wealth  of  the  richest  part  of  Eu¬ 
rope,  the  purpose  of  the  Burgundian  dukes  was  to 
create  a  state  that  should  be  independent  of  either 
France  or  Germany  —  from  which  came  frequent  in¬ 
vasions,  besides  constant  interferences.  Some  of  the 
finest  monuments  in  the  Belgium  of  to-day  tell  of 
battles  with,  or  victories  over,  French  knights  and 
German  armies.  Belgic  Land  has  been  for  ages  the 
cockpit  or  quarreling  ground  of  the  two  races,  Frank¬ 
ish  and  Teutonic,  that  seem  to  have  chronic  dislikes 
and  animosities.  Between  their  undying  rivalries, 
Belgic  Land,  with  a  new  sense  of  nationality,  was  to 

37 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


stand,  holding  the  balance  of  power,  like  the  gover¬ 
nor  on  a  pair  of  scales.  To  be  a  “buffer  state  ”  means 
to  be  a  shock-absorber  in  a  collision,  or  a  cushion  in 
the  concussion  between  two  rivals,  or  the  peaceable 
victim  between  contending  armies. 

To  the  great  scheme  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  in 
unifying  many  fractions  of  sovereignty,  there  were 
two  obstacles,  the  northern  industrial  cities  in 
Flanders,  like  Ghent,  and  the  great  trading  centers 
like  Antwerp.  There  were  also,  in  the  Walloon  man¬ 
ufacturing  city  of  Li&ge,  independent  and  powerful 
bishops,  who  ruled  as  lords  of  the  land.  It  was 
of  these  interior  jealousies  that  King  Louis  XI  of 
France  hoped  to  make  use  in  attempting  to  check¬ 
mate  the  plan  of  Belgian  unity.  In  rivalry  and  op¬ 
position,  Charles  the  Bold  (1433-77)  tried  to  rees¬ 
tablish  the  old  ninth-century  Kingdom  of  Lothair, 
making  all  the  border  lands  of  western  Europe  into 
one  state. 

Most  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  were  wise  rulers, 
but  in  the  case  of  Charles  the  Bold,  or  the  Bully,  we 
have  an  example  of  the  kind  of  rulers  feudalism  is 
apt  to  breed.  This  despot  thought  nothing  of  punish¬ 
ing  a  revolt  by  reducing  a  town  to  ashes  and  then 
hanging,  shooting,  or  drowning  its  inhabitants  by 
the  thousands.  He  well  deserved  his  fate  when  he 
tried  the  same  game  of  brutality  with  the  brave 
Swiss.  At  Nancy,  January  5,  1477,  he  was  slain,  and 
his  banners  and  the  trophies  picked  up  on  the  bat¬ 
tle-field  now  hang  in  the  museums  of  Switzerland, 

,  38 


THE  GLORIOUS  BURGUNDIAN  ERA 


while  democracy  in  that  mountain  land,  whose  peo¬ 
ple  assisted  so  largely  to  build  up  Pennsylvania,  is 
safe  to  this  day. 

At  Bruges,  the  tourist  visits  one  of  the  most  mag¬ 
nificent  tombs  in  Europe.  It  is  that  of  Charles  the 
Bold  and  of  his  daughter  Mary.  In  those  days, 
beautiful  girls,  or  even  homely  and  stupid  princesses, 
were  pawns  in  the  games  of  kings,  who  used  lands 
and  peoples  as  if  they  were  nothing  more  than  dom¬ 
inoes  or  pieces  on  a  chessboard.  To  get  a  royal  or 
princely  girl  for  a  wife,  in  this  style,  seems  to  us  only 
another  form  of  marriage  by  capture,  in  African 
fashion,  or  the  sale  of  a  woman  for  cows  or  cowrie 
shells.  Yet  this  was  the  time  “when  knighthood  was 
in  flower.’ * 

Louis  XI  was  eager  and  anxious  to  get  the  Prin¬ 
cess  Mary  of  Burgundy,  only  daughter  of  Charles 
the  Bold.  There  was  no  love  in  the  scheme,  but  only 
the  gambler’s  hope  of  a  winning  game.  Yet  with  all 
his  craft  and  power,  he  failed  miserably.  So,  to  vent 
his  spite  and  malice,  he  seized  those  territories  of  the 
dead  Duke  which  lay  in  France.  His  excuse  was  that 
since  Charles  had  no  male  heir,  this  landed  property 
reverted  to  the  French  crown. 

Much  of  this  is  told  in  the  form  of  a  story  by  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  in  the  romance  of  “Quentin  Durward,’’ 
which  all  should  read.  Yet  even  this  great  novelist 
makes  the  mistake  of  calling  the  men  “Flemings” 
and  making  his  hero  appear  to  talk  Dutch,  when 
everything  in  the  situation  and  even  the  speech 

39  . 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


shows  that  they  were  Walloons.  However,  in  the 
older  English  literature,  ‘‘Flanders”  usually  meant 
all  Belgic  Land,  and  ‘‘the  Low  Countries”  the 
whole  of  the  seventeen  provinces.  Even  now, 
“Holland”  —  the  name  of  but  one  of  the  eleven 
provinces  which  compose  the  kingdom  —  is  ap¬ 
plied  by  some  foreigners  to  the  whole  realm  of  the 
Netherlands. 

It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  Crusades,  when  the 
half-civilized  Occident  touched  the  more  civilized 
Orient,  that  commerce  and  the  guilds  of  craftsmen 
were  developed.  The  Town  Hall  and  the  Bourse,  or 
Exchange,  for  the  merchants,  and  the  walled  cities 
had  not  yet  appeared;  but  these,  along  with  the 
guilds  or  companies  of  working-men,  were  to  come 
later.  These  were  portents  and  signs  that  feudalism, 
in  both  Church  and  State,  which  in  most  countries  of 
Europe  lasted  five  hundred  years,  or  from  about  the 
ninth  to  the  fourteenth  century,  was  being  broken 
up  and  was  ready  to  pass  away. 

By  the  end  of  the  Burgundian  era  Belgic  Land  had 
taken  on  a  notable  and  attractive  feature  which  dif¬ 
ferentiates  the  Netherlands  from  almost  any  part  of 
Europe,  except  where  the  Walloon  speech  and  gen¬ 
ius  prevail.  It  had  become  the  home,  by  excellence, 
of  the  bells.  In  this  region,  beyond  all  others,  was 
there  literally  “music  in  the  air.” 

One  flower,  especially  associated  in  point  of  time 
with  the  Burgundian  era,  but  now  a  familiar  sight  in 
the  eastern  part  of  the  United  States,  is  the  meadow 

40 


THE  GLORIOUS  BURGUNDIAN  ERA 


ornament,  which  has  a  yellow  disk  with  white  petals. 
This  our  Teutonic  ancestors  named  from  the  sun  the 
day’s  eye,  or  daisy,  and  Chaucer  “the  emprise  and 
flower  of  flowers  all.”  It  may  be  called  the  flower  of 
the  Walloons.  At  the  marriage  of  Charles  the  Bold 
with  Margaret  of  York,  England,  a  nosegay  of  these 
Marguerite  daisies  was  among  the  most  conspicuous 
of  the  floral  gifts  and  decorations.  , 


CHAPTER  VI 
IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES  V 

One  of  the  surest  proofs  that  the  seventeen  prov¬ 
inces  were  attaining  unity  is  seen  in  what  happened 
in  the  year  1477.  The  poor  German  prince  Maximil¬ 
ian  I,  who  inaugurated  the  line  that  was  disgraced 
by  summary  execution  in  Mexico,  in  our  time,  was 
the  Emperor  then.  He  married  Mary,  daughter  of 
Charles  the  Bold.  He  wedded  her  first  according  to 
legal,  not  ritual,  church  forms;  for,  in  the  “Old” 
Church,  marriage  is  a  sacrament.  Being  in  a  hurry, 
too  —  for  she  was  rich  and  he  needed  the  money  — 
occupied  with  much  business,  and  not  having  much 
cash  on  hand  for  the  journey,  he  was  joined  to  her 
legally  by  proxy.  This  was  a  common  custom  in  the 
European  marriage  market,  among  mediaeval  rulers, 
as  has  been  shown  in  “ Belgium:  The  Land  of  Art.” 
Later  the  great  Spaniard,  the  Duke  of  Alva,  served 
in  the  same  way  for  his  master,  the  much  married 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  when  officially  espoused  to  Eliza¬ 
beth  of  Valois. 

When,  in  due  season,  Maximilian  and  Mary  had 
been  regularly  married,  with  the  final  public  cere¬ 
monies,  the  couple  made  their  “joyous  entry”  into 
the  cities  of  the  Netherlands,  and  the  groom  took 
oath  to  “support  the  constitution”  by  respecting 
old  charters  and  the  new  requirements.  Thus,  by 

42 


IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES  V 


transfer  of  authority  through  matrimony,  the  seven¬ 
teen  provinces  came  under  the  rule  of  the  House  of 
Austria.  From  this  time  forth,  until  the  French  Rev¬ 
olution,  the  southern  Netherlands  were  more  and 
more  sacrificed  to  the  interests  of  their  masters, 
whether  belonging  to  the  Austrian  or  the  Spanish 
branch  of  the  Hapsburgs.  It  became  like  a  game  of 
shuttlecock  and  battledore;  Belgic  Land  being  the 
ball  between  the  players,  Spain  and  Austria,  varied 
by  the  interpositions  required  by  Dutch  and  British 
statecraft. 

But  before  the  time  of  the  wedding  of  Mary  and 
Maximilian,  which  was  within  fifteen  years  of  the 
discovery  of  America,  the  Netherlanders  resolved  to 
be  sure  of  good  treatment  by  the  foreigner.  They 
knew  that  when  once  they  were  within  his  grip,  he 
would  squeeze  from  them,  in  the  form  of  taxes,  all 
the  money  he  could  possibly  get,  to  squander  in 
some  one  of  those  interminable  wars  which  were  ever 
likely  to  spring  up.  When  the  men  of  privilege  wore 
iron  clothes,  and  a  sword  was  part  of  their  costume, 
settled  peace  was  always  an  improbability. 

Already  the  burghers  had  learned  that  good  gov¬ 
ernment  cost  money  and  must  be  paid  for,  yet,  also, 
their  motto  was  “no  taxation  without  consent.”  So 
they  waited  upon  the  Princess  Mary  and  demanded 
that  she  summon  what  we  might  call  a  parliament 
of  the  provinces,  that  they,  and  not  the  alien  ruler, 
should  set  the  limit  of  taxation.  She  must  grant 
what  was  then,  considering  the  ruling  ideas  of  the  age 

43 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

in  other  countries,  a  constitution,  which  should  limit 
the  ruler’s  powers.  The  document,  which  she  finally 
signed  and  which  granted  much  power  to  her  sub¬ 
jects,  was  called  “The  Great  Privileged  It  became 
a  living  political  force,  efficient  and  active  for  over  a 
century.  It  paved  the  way  for  the  Republic  of  the 
United  Netherlands,  in  1579;  the  English  Common¬ 
wealth  of  1649;  and  the  American  Constitution  of 
1787;  for  mankind,  in  its  action,  is  governed  less  by 
theories  than  by  successful  precedents,  and  every 
precedent  counts,  while  movement  in  one  country 
affects  the  life  of  another. 

The  discovery  of  America  had  a  vast  influence 
upon  the  politics,  governments,  and  trade  systems 
of  Europe.  Among  other  upheavals  and  readjust¬ 
ments,  it  made  Spain  the  most  powerful  among  the 
states  of  Europe,  besides  relatively  projecting  west¬ 
ward  England  and  the  other  countries  facing  the 
Atlantic. 

When  in  1500,  Charles  V,  the  grandson  of  Mary 
and  Maximilian,  was  born  in  Ghent,  the  rejoicings 
of  both  Flemings  and  Walloons  were  great.  People 
went  wild  with  delight.  They  were  happy  that  now 
a  Burgundian  prince  was  once  more  their  ruler,  for  it 
brought  back  the  memories  of  the  great  prosperity 
and  brilliant  renown  of  their  native  land  in  that  era. 

Of  this  sovereign  the  world  expected  much.  When 
he  entered  cities,  as  contemporary  documents  and 
pictures  show,  popular  joy  reached  the  point  of  de¬ 
lirium.  Besides  being  King  of  Spain  and  overlord  of 

44 


IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES  V 


the  rich  Netherlands,  he  became,  at  the  early  age 
of  twenty,  Emperor  of  Germany.  His  opportuni¬ 
ties  measured  up  to  his  titles  and  position.  Yet  he 
turned  out  to  be  a  lover  of  continual  war  and  of  car¬ 
nal  pleasures.  He  became  prematurely  old  and  died 
a  glutton. 

At  first,  Charles  followed  out  the  policy  of  his  Bur¬ 
gundian  predecessors,  in  attempting  to  make  the 
Netherlands  the  dominant  state  in  Europe  —  thus 
holding  at  bay  the  great  powers  of  France  and  Ger¬ 
many,  both  of  which  were  equally  ambitious  and 
aggressive.  They  were  always  ready  to  renew  their 
quarrels,  which  had  already  lasted  a  thousand  years, 
on  Belgic  soil. 

Yet  notwithstanding  his  vast  possessions  in  the 
Old  and  New  World,  and  his  enormous  resources, 
Charles  failed  and  finally  abdicated  the  throne  in 
favor  of  his  Spanish-born  son,  Philip  II,  who  was 
one  of  the  greatest  bigots  of  all  time.  Charles  died 
of  over  eating,  in  a  monastery  in  Spain.  It  was  under 
his  rule  that  the  great  surgeon  Vesalius,  a  Fleming, 
made  a  wonderful  advance  in  science  and  humanity 
by  amputating  the  limbs  of  soldiers  wounded  in 
battle. 

Despite  all  his  faults,  Charles  V  did  much  to  give 
form  and  cohesion  to  the  Netherlands  and  to  in¬ 
crease  the  spirit  of  national  unity.  One  of  his  creative 
works  was  the  Raad  van  State,  or  Council  of  State, 
the  supreme  court  of  the  land.  This  institution 
after  many  vicissitudes  is  still  in  existence.  The  most 

45 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

imposing  modern  edifice  in  Belgium  is  the  Palace  of 
Justice,  in  Brussels,  which  is  built  on  the  old  site  of 
the  castle  of  the  counts  of  Brabant.  The  American 
doctrine  of  judicial  supremacy  and  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  have  come  to  us  by  direct 
evolution  from  this  creation  of  Charles  V. 

In  the  time  of  Charles  V  there  were  two  hundred 
and  twelve  walled  cities  in  the  seventeen  provinces, 
and  most  of  these  possessed  written  charters.  Some 
of  these  were  older  than  Magna  Charta  and  were 
published,  not  in  Latin,  but  in  the  language  of  the 
people,  which  all  could  read  and  understand.  There 
were  many  defects  in  the  constitution  of  the  Dutch 
Republic;  but  our  fathers,  in  1787,  though  repudiat¬ 
ing  the  Dutch  constitution  as  a  whole,  profited  by 
history  and  experience  to  note  these  defects  and  to 
make  improvements;  for,  as  Hamilton  wrote,  “Ex¬ 
perience  is  the  oracle  of  truth.” 

The  bringing  of  new  ideas,  through  what  we  call 
the  Renaissance,  or  the  New  Birth  of  Learning, 
which  preceded  the  Reformation,  had  deeply  stirred 
men’s  minds,  and  given  them  a  new  world  of 
thought.  In  this  movement,  learned  men  used  not 
only  their  eyes,  but  the  pen  and  the  spade.  They 
dug  up,  copied  out,  printed,  and  exhibited  the  won¬ 
derful  treasures  in  literature  and  art  of  the  Hebrews, 
Greeks,  Romans,  and  Arabs.  They  found  out  that 
there  had  been  and  were  civilizations  greater  than 
their  own. 

History  is  a  resurrection.  At  first,  most  of  the 

46  ’ 


IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES  V 


knowledge  of  such  great  ancients  as  Plato  and  Aris¬ 
totle  was  made  known  in  Europe  through  Arabic 
translations.  In  a  large  sense,  “the  glory  that  was 
Greece,  and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome”  had  been 
unknown  before  to  mediaeval  Europeans.  By  the 
multitude  they  were  hardly  suspected  to  have  ever 
existed.  The  popular  stories  of  the  past  were  fan¬ 
tastic  to  the  last  degree.  To  discover  the  originals 
was  as  the  finding  of  the  continent  of  America  by 
the  men  who  followed  Columbus. 

In  the  time  of  Charles  V  very  few  people  knew 
what  the  Bible  was,  except  as  the  priests  told  them, 
or  they  learned  from  pictures,  statues,  tapestry, 
carvings,  and  miracle  plays.  The  stories  told  in  the 
pulpit  were  more  or  less  funny,  and  in  time  the  Pas¬ 
sion  Play  became  a  Punch  and  Judy  show  —  Pon¬ 
tius  Pilate  being  Punch,  and  his  wife,  with  the  leg¬ 
endary  name  of  Judith,  being  Judy.  A  great  many 
notions  and  symbols,  such  as  feminine  angels  with 
wings,  were  borrowed  from  Buddhism.  Except 
priests  and  monks,  the  majority  of  people  were 
totally  ignorant  of  the  Bible  and  its  contents,  and 
most  of  the  men  at  the  altar  knew  very  little. 

It  was  like  thirsty  souls  coming  to  a  living  spring 
of  water  to  read  the  Greek  classics  and  the  New 
Testament. 

Columbus  got  his  ideas  about  land  lying  in  the 
western  part  of  the  globe  from  Plato’s  writings, 
which  came  to  mediaeval  Europe  through  the 
Arabic.  When  the  Saracens  —  a  word  meaning  Ori- 

47 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


entals  and  a  general  name  for  Turks  and  Moslems  — 
captured  Constantinople,  the  Greek  scholars  fled  to 
western  Europe,  bringing  with  them  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment.  Then  it  was  that  learned  men  found  out  in 
what  the  true  Church  consisted  and  where  lay  the 
seat  of  authority.  They  discovered  that  in  the  first 
Christian  congregations  there  were  no  pope  or 
cardinals,  and  that  bishops  were  only  pastors  of 
churches,  or  “overseers,”  while  kings  and  politicians 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  conscience.  Yet  Chris¬ 
tianity  in  the  eyes  of  the  State  Church  was  branded 
as  “heresy,”  just  as  was  the  Reformation  later. 
“Life  grows  by  ‘heresies.’” 

Moreover  it  was  found  that  anciently,  in  the  days 
of  the  apostles,  the  people  elected  their  own  officers. 
What  was  most  to  be  feared  by  kings  was  the  rule  of 
the  people,  as  in  the  time  of  Moses,  and  the  early 
Jewish  republics.  The  ancient  literature  showed 
that  this  was  by  elders,  and  that  when  God  gave 
kings  to  Israel,  He  did  it  in  his  wrath  and  He  took 
royalty  away  in  his  displeasure;  because  though 
called  “the  Lord’s  anointed,”  many  of  the  kings 
were  bad  rulers  and  wicked  in  their  lives.  Some 
prelates  even  objected  to  translating  the  Bible  into 
the  people’s  language,  lest  men  should  learn  how  to 
swear  worse  than  before. 

It  often  happens  that  there  are  men  born  into  the 
world  who  are  not  blind  with  the  eyes  set  in  their 
heads,  but  are  utterly  obtuse  as  to  what  is  going  on  in 
men’s  minds.  Charles  V  was  one  of  the  most  blinded, 

48 


IN  THE  TIME  OF  CHARLES  V 


partly  because  his  chief  business  was  that  of  a  soldier 
and  therefore  he  was  interested  chiefly  in  war.  Yet 
he  knew  little  and  could  comprehend  less  of  the 
great  movement  of  mind  that  was  to  create  a  new 
world  of  thought,  worship,  habits,  and  customs,  and 
to  renew  society.  Men  had  got  hold  of  the  original 
documents  of  Christianity.  Reading  these  they 
found  out  how  different  was  the  primitive  Church 
from  the  great  corporation  in  Italy,  which  ruled 
men’s  consciences. 

Erasmus,  the  Netherlands  scholar,  collected  over 
three  hundred  ancient  manuscripts  and  made  a  new 
translation  from  the  Greek  into  elegant  Latin. 
From  this  ‘‘received  text”  —  the  basis  of  our  “  King 
James  Version”  —  translations  of  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  were  made  into  nearly  every  language  in 
Europe.  To-day,  over  twelve  thousand  manuscripts 
have  been  made  use  of  by  critics  and  scholars,  and 
the  Revised  Version  —  the  terror  alike  of  ignorant 
“evangelists,”  reactionaries,  and  prelates,  of  both 
the  Roman  and  the  Reformed  obedience  —  brings 
the  record  of  the  Church  nearer  to  reality. 

In  the  Netherlands,  printing  was  free;  which  was 
not  then  the  case  in  England.  Before  the  English 
Bible  was  printed  in  England  over  a  score  of  editions 
of  the  Bible,  or  parts  of  the  Bible,  had  been  pub¬ 
lished  among  the  Flemings  and  Walloons  in  the 
Netherlands.  One  can  go  into  the  Plantin  Museum 
in  Antwerp  to-day  and  see  a  printing  office  of  the  old 
time. 


49 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Yet  even  before  1453  and  the  exodus  of  the  Greek 
scholars  westward,  the  forces  were  gathering  that 
were  to  bring  in  a  new  world  of  thought,  of  society, 
and  of  economics.  It  would  take  pages  to  catalogue 
all  the  elements  in  the  dynamic  that  precipitated  the 
Reformation,  or  to  tell  of  the  events  and  men  and 
books  that  led  up  to  it.  Yet  in  the  Netherlands,  as 
in  every  instance  before  and  in  every  case  since,  the 
Walloons  were  foremost  in  the  great  awakening  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 

“Light  from  the  east!”  A  new  world  of  joy  was 
dawning. 

The  oncoming  of  the  Reformation  spoiled  the 
colossal  imperialistic  schemes  of  which  Charles  V 
dreamed,  and  in  the  attempts  to  execute  which,  he 
dealt  with  human  life  as  a  player  with  tenpins.  His 
Spanish  son,  Philip,  came  into  the  Netherlands 
unable  to  talk  the  speech  either  of  Walloon  or  of 
Fleming,  and  only  to  make  up  his  mind  to  murder 
thousands  of  human  beings,  in  the  name  of  God  and 
the  Church.  Yet  the  spider  in  the  Escurial,  even 
while  spinning  his  web  of  destruction,  found  in 
William  of  Orange  the  wasp  that  destroyed  the 
spider’s  offspring;  while  on  the  day  that  Alva’s 
“  blackbeards  ”  arrived  on  Belgian  soil  to  do  their 
work  of  death,  there  was  born  in  Antwerp  a  baby 
boy,  William  Usselinx,  who  was  destined  not  only 
to  bring  to  naught  the  plans  of  Alva,  but  to  father 
the  West  India  Company  of  the  Dutch  Republic  and 
inaugurate  the  colonization  of  Distinctive  America. 


j  CHAPTER  VII 
THE  DEATHLESS  BOOK 

The  literature  of  the  Bible  is  one  of  the  most  danger¬ 
ous  of  elements  to  be  feared  by  the  opponents  of 
ordered  freedom,  whether  in  Church  or  State.  This 
is  proved  by  that  revolt  against  feudalism,  whether 
political  or  ecclesiastical,  which  broke  out  all  over 
western  Europe,  when  the  ancient  literature  of  the 
Hebrews  and  early  Christians  was  put  into  the  lan¬ 
guages  of  modern  nations.  Those  plain  people,  cari¬ 
catured  under  the  name  of  Anabaptists,  did  not 
know  enough  to  make  out  of  Jesus  what  the  men 
who  wore  crowns  and  miters,  or  academic  gowns  and 
caps,  saw  in  Him,  and  they  tried  to  reform  society  in 
root  and  branch.  Men  of  conscience  holding  Ana¬ 
baptist  ideas  were  quickly  found  in  many  countries 
and  especially  in  the  Walloon  provinces.  Without 
being  met  by  argument  or  reason,  they  were  burned, 
drowned,  and  slaughtered  as  wolves  or  poisonous 
vermin.  In  Belgic  Land,  both  the  Reformed  and  the 
Romanists  tried  to  exterminate  the  Anabaptists,  so 
called,  by  fire,  burial  alive,  or  the  gallows. 

Guido  de  Bray,  the  Walloon  hero,  was  one  of  the 
few  who  honestly  tried  to  understand,  while  strenu¬ 
ously  opposing  them.  His  chief  motive  was  to  clear 
those  of  the  Reformed  faith  from  false  charges. 
Probably  the  ablest  intellectual  argument  written 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


against  the  Anabaptists,  exposing  their  defects,  was 
from  his  pen. 

The  Anabaptists  ushered  in  the  modern  world. 
They  were  like  those  in  the  Orient,  the  once  despised 
searchers  into  the  secrets  of  Western  science  and 
freedom,  who  in  Japan,  China,  and  India  suffered 
death  for  “introducing  novelties”  and  “holding  evil 
opinions”  (Christianity).  Both  were  pioneers  who 
led  the  nations  that  have  marched  forward,  making 
progress  over  the  bloody  tracks  of  the  martyrs.  To 
be  put  to  death  for  conscience’  sake  means  first  the 
sowing  of  seed  by  the  victims  for  larger  world  har¬ 
vests.  One  of  these  victims  taught  the  true  philoso¬ 
phy  when,  flinching  not  from  the  gibbet,  He  himself 
dared  to  be  the  file-leader  of  the  world’s  salvation 
and  “endured  the  cross,  despising  the  shame.” 

No  attempt  is  here  made  to  tell  in  detail  of  the 
“re-baptizers,”  upon  whom  the  crimes  of  Munster 
are  absurdly  charged.  No  full  account  of  these  “pa¬ 
riahs  of  history”  has  ever  been  attempted,  though 
the  late  Dr.  J.  G.  de  Hoop  Scheffer  wrote  of  those  in 
the  Netherlands  and  his  work  was  crowned  as  genu¬ 
ine  history  by  bodies  of  learned  and  judicial  men. 
Under  Menno  Simons  they  were  shepherded,  and 
the  Mennonites  are  perhaps  their  nearest  represen¬ 
tatives  to-day.  The  first  persons  in  England  to  re¬ 
ceive  Christian  baptism,  not  as  unconscious  infants, 
or  unreasoning  children,  but  as  adults  with  full  men¬ 
tal  powers,  were  Mennonites.1 

1  History  of  the  Free  Churchmen  [Brownists,  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and 

52 


THE  DEATHLESS  BOOK 


These  people  were  especially  opposed  to  human 
slavery.  It  is  a  fact  of  history  that  we  Americans 
received  by  direct  inheritance  our  freedom,  not 
from  the  “  churches,”  then  so-called,  but  from  the 
“sects,”  which  kings  and  prelates  banned. 

In  the  eyes  of  royalty  and  prelacy,  the  “damnable 
error”  of  the  Anabaptists  was  that  they  believed  in 
progress.  They  would  change  the  existing  order  of 
things,  which  kept  scepter  and  crozier,  with  their 
honors  and  revenues,  in  the  hands  of  those  who  al¬ 
ready  held  them.  Down  at  the  bottom,  beneath  all 
outward  demonstrations,  sometimes  grotesque,  the 
alleged  heresy  was  a  desire  to  change  what,  it  was 
claimed,  had  been  ordained  of  God  and  fixed  since 
creation.  It  was  not  only  “scoffers,  walking  after 
their  own  lusts,”  who  said  “since  the  fathers  fell 
asleep  all  things  continue  as  they  were  from  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  creation  ” ;  but  all  orthodoxy,  from  the 
chair  of  St.  Peter  to  the  unlettered  peasant,  held 
that  the  order  of  the  world,  society,  and  the  Church 
as  then  ruled,  was  fixed,  and  that  to  disturb  it  was 
worse  than  breaking  the  commandments. 

The  modern  ideas  of  progress,  now  part  of  our  vi¬ 
tal  breath,  which  we  inhale  when  on  our  birth-beds, 
was  utterly  unknown.  An  individual  might  have 
visions,  but  the  Church  as  a  mass  was  crystallized. 
Even  at  the  Reformation,  there  was  surprisingly  lit¬ 
tle  change  of  dogma,  and,  with  the  orthodox,  no  at- 

Baptists],  by  J.  G.  de  Hoop  Scheffer;  W.  E.  Griffis,  Editor.  Ithaca, 
New  York,  1922.  Andrus  and  Church. 

53 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


tempt  to  apply  the  new  thought  to  social  order.  The 
pagan  philosophers,  Christian  fathers,  “the  Holy 
Church  throughout  all  the  world,”  many  Reformers, 
one  and  all,  taught  the  fixity  of  things,  which  to  dis¬ 
turb,  or  even  challenge,  was  a  crime.  The  earth,  and 
even  the  universe,  was  as  a  cabinet,  elaborately  con¬ 
structed  and  fitted  together,  but  never  to  be  touched 
for  alteration;  for  change  would  mean  destruction. 
Social  reform  would  spoil  honors,  revenue,  office,  and 
power,  and  wither  ambition.  All  truth  was  a  “de¬ 
posit”  in  care  of  the  holy  centralized  Church,  to  be 
held  as  a  sacred  trust,  never  to  be  added  to  or  dimin¬ 
ished.  It  was  already  full  day  and  no  new  sunshine, 
no  fresh  sunlight  was  to  break  out  of  the  Bible,  or 
the  Consistory,  or  the  Orient.  All  things  were  to 
continue  as  they  were  until  the  Dies  Irce : 

“  That  Day  of  Wrath,  that  awful  day 
When  man  to  judgment  wakes  from  clay,” 

and  the  elements  were  to  “melt  with  fervent  heat.” 

The  Brethren  believed  differently.  After  they  had 
digested  the  results  of  the  Renaissance,  or  New 
Birth  of  Learning,  as  far  as  they  could  assimilate 
what  they  had  learned,  they  got  hold  of  the  Bible. 
This  was  like  adding  a  blast  to  the  furnace,  or  wind 
to  a  prairie  fire.  It  swept  over  Europe.  It  was  a  time 
of  exhaustion,  and  the  common  people,  after  endless 
wars  and  distress  from  industrial  oppression,  were 
intoxicated  with  expected  freedom.  Liberty  turned 
into  license  and  some  disturbances  resulted. 


54 


THE  DEATHLESS  BOOK 


Yet  with  how  little  wisdom  was  the  world  gov¬ 
erned  !  The  authorities  in  Church  and  State,  instead 
of  seeking  the  cause  and  laying  the  axe  at  the  root 
of  the  trouble,  could  see  only  the  outward  and  de¬ 
structive  phases.  They  were  too  blind,  too  hardened 
in  routine  to  discern  the  creative  energy  inherent  in 
the  movement.  In  the  score  of  crimes  alleged  against 
the  Anabaptists,  the  capital  charge  was  that  they 
stood  for  progress.  They  wanted  to  change  things. 
That  meant  heresy.  The  Church  had  built  itself 
upon  the  motto  of  Tertullian,  given  in  the  third  cen¬ 
tury:  “A  rule  of  faith  changeless  and  incapable  of 
reformation.”  So  fire,  flood,  the  gallows,  and  the 
sword  were  invoked  for  the  suppression  of  these 
militant  reformers. 

Nevertheless  to-day  church  edifices  stand  on  the 
old  ash  heaps  of  human  fuel,  and  “the  sects”  can 
look  back  on  victories  which  “the  Church”  claims 
as  her  own.  The  time  did  indeed  come  when  not  only 
the  Church,  but  the  Reformers  needed  reforming. 
So  the  Quakers,  the  Methodists,  the  Mennonites, 
and  other  contestants  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  Master,  entered  the  race.  In  the  perspec¬ 
tive  of  years  and  the  vision  of  to-day,  can  any  show 
a  better  record  than  that  of  the  Friends? 

Whether  as  friend,  critic,  or  enemy  we  judge 
State  and  Church  persons,  events,  or  movements, 
we  should  not  fail  to  recognize  the  good  in  all  and 
note  what  has  been  done  by  them.  My  own  ideas 
about  the  Anabaptists  were  given  in  “The  New 

55 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


World”  for  December,  1895,  after  visits  to  their 
churches  and  historic  places  in  the  Netherlands,  in¬ 
terviews  with  their  people  there  and  in  our  country, 
and  some  study  of  their  history  and  beliefs.  The 
quotation  here  made  seems  more  than  ever  true  and 
pertinent,  after  the  great  military  upheaval,  from 
1914  to  1918,  in  which  the  failure  of  the  Sword  to 
bring  order  in  the  world  was  shown  and  when  the 
taunt  of  the  smug  churchman,  “He  saved  others, 
himself  he  cannot  save,”  may  have  a  suggestion  of 
another  and  the  right  way.  The  Anabaptists  made 
at  least  the  attempt  to  walk  in  the  Christ’s  path. 

Interpreting  then  the  movement  called  “Anabaptist,” 
which  began  as  soon  as  the  Bible  was  widely  read  in  the 
vernaculars  of  Europe,  in  the  light  of  to-day,  when  over 
the  fairest  parts  of  the  earth  kings  are  becoming  phan¬ 
toms  and  political  bishops  shadows,  when  republics  are 
common  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  an 
Anabaptist  document,  is  over  one  hundred  years  old,  we 
find  these  to  be  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the  people 
[the  Anabaptists]  who  tried  to  take  Jesus  Christ  seriously. 

1.  Separation  of  Church  and  State. 

2.  No  official  meddling  with  the  conscience. 

3.  No  persecution  on  account  of  religion. 

4.  Every  man  free  to  worship  God  according  to  the 
dictates  of  his  own  conscience. 

5.  No  damnation  of  infants. 

6.  The  salvation  of  the  God-seeking  heathen. 

7.  The  priesthood  of  all  believers. 

8.  All  the  commands  of  Christ  binding. 

9.  Honest  translations  of  the  Bible. 

10.  The  Bible  in  the  hands  of  the  people. 

56 


THE  DEATHLESS  BOOK 


11.  The  Written  Word  to  be  honored,  but  not  wor¬ 
shiped. 

12.  The  Holy  Spirit  to  be  constantly  sought  for  aid  and 
guidance. 

13.  Self-governing  churches,  with  the  rights  and  powers 
of  the  congregation,  as  set  forth  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment. 

14.  The  validity  of  congregational  ordination  of  pastors 
and  teachers,  who  were  not  necessarily  to  be  a  dis¬ 
tinct  class. 

15.  Congregational  singing.  (The  Anabaptists  made  and 
sang  some  of  the  very  first  modern  evangelical 
hymns.) 

16.  Home  and  foreign  missions.  (By  the  very  terms  of 
their  church  membership,  they  were  missionaries; 
they  understood  and  practiced  “beginning  at  Jeru¬ 
salem.  ”) 

1 7.  Social  and  political,  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  recon¬ 
struction. 

18.  The  reform  of  penology  and  of  prisons.  (Most  of 
them  held  to  abolition  of  the  death-penalty  and 
to  the  root-idea  of  the  indeterminate  sentence,  both 
here  and  hereafter.) 

19.  No  human  slavery  or  serfdom,  but  the  equality  of 
all  men. 

20.  The  education  of  women  and  the  equalization  of  the 
sexes,  especially  in  religious  life  and  privilege. 

In  a  word,  unless  we  have  misread  their  own  confes¬ 
sions  and  the  creeds  which  they  were  driven  to  formulate, 
and  unless  we  mistake  the  voices  heard  out  of  the  dun¬ 
geon,  rack,  and  fire,  the  above  articles,  in  outline,  con¬ 
stituted  the  faith  of  the  people  whom  the  magistrates  and 
churchmen  of  the  sixteenth  century  —  excepting  only 
William  the  Silent  and  the  Dutch  Republic  —  felt  it 
necessary  to  exterminate.  In  Anabaptist  confessions,  oral 


57 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  verbal,  we  discover  the~seed-bed  of  the  great  truths 
now  held  by  us  as  most  precious.  The  form  in  which  the 
Brethren  tried  to  realize  their  vision  seemed,  three  cen¬ 
turies  and  a  half  ago,  as  destructive  to  the  institutions 
then  existing  as  Christ’s  real  teachings  actually  are  to  the 
selfish  and  ambitious  holders  of  wealth  and  power  to-day. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHERE  AND  WHEN  BEGAN  THE  REFORMATION  ? 

The  Huguenot  Walloon  is  the  child  of  the  Refor¬ 
mation. 

If  we  must  insist  upon  setting  a  date,  or  naming  a 
place  for  the  visible  beginning  of  that  very  complex 
movement  called  the  Reformation,  we  may  as  well 
look  to  Paris,  and  find  the  man,  who  spoke  in  the 
French  language,  which  the  Walloons  not  only 
talked  but  read.  The  word  “ Protestant”  refers  to 
an  event  in  Germany,  while  the  term  “ Catholic’ * 
has  been  corrupted  from  its  original  meaning.  A 
far  better  term,  descriptive  of  Christianity,  when 
stripped  of  its  accretions  and  deformities,  is  the 
word  “  Reformed,”  while  the  phrase  in  the  creed 
“The  Holy  Christian  Church”  is  one  untainted  with 
the  notions  of  sect,  locality,  or  monopoly. 

It  was  the  Bible,  and  not  any  “sect”  or  “church,” 
that  turned  the  old  world  upside  down  and  ushered 
in  a  new  and  better  one.  It  was  ancient  literature 
that  kept  burning  the  torch  and  lesson  of  ordered 
freedom  which  we  enjoy  to-day.  It  was  as  much 
through  music  and  song,  as  by  sermon,  or  reading,  or 
preaching,  that  the  spark  of  the  new  fire  became  a 
revolutionary  conflagration.  The  pathway  for  the 
Calvinistic  or  Reformed  phase  of  the  faith  —  as  de¬ 
picted  in  the  sculptures  of  the  Monument  of  the 

59 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Reformation  in  Geneva  and  unveiled  in  our  decade 

• —  was  made  clear. 

If  music  be  conceived  of  as  a  universal  language,  in 
its  appeal  to  the  emotions,  then  also  in  the  Nether¬ 
lands  we  may  discern  the  home  of  modern  music  and 
the  original  of  its  notation.  Among  other  eminent 
and  creative  musicians  was  Josquin  des  Pres,  or 
Depres  (1450-1521) ;  the  foremost  composer  of  his 
age,  who  developed  counterpoint.  He  won  even  the 
praise  of  Luther,  and  he  certainly  prepared  the  way 
for  the  Reformation,  by  adapting  musical  themes  to 
the  words  of  the  piece.  His  journey  to  Rome  marks 
the  transfer  of  the  musical  art  from  Gallo-Belgium, 
its  birthplace,  to  Italy ;  which  for  two  centuries  there¬ 
after  was  the  center  of  the  musical  world. 

Reformed  Christianity  in  France  was  not  of  for¬ 
eign  origin.  It  grew  up  on  the  soil.  Years  before 
Luther,  Calvin,  or  Zwingli,  France  was  astir  with 
thought  and  there  was  a  great  outburst  of  literary 
activity  following  upon  the  new  learning.  In  the 
university  of  Paris,  one  of  the  oldest  and  greatest  in 
Europe,  the  theological  division  was  the  Sorbonne. 
In  a  true  university,  theology  —  which  is  the  adjust¬ 
ment  of  what  man  believes  with  what  he  knows  —  is 
studied  as  one  of  the  sciences.  More  and  more,  in 
America,  our  purely  sectarian  schools  of  divinity 
receive  less  support  and  are  being  affiliated  with 
universities. 

When  popes,  emperors,  cardinals,  and  kings 
looked  at  the  “sects”  of  free  churchmen  which  arose 

60 


THE  GREAT  MONUMENT  OF  THE  (CALVINISTIC)  REFORMATION  AT  GENEVA  (1918) 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 


from  the  study  of  the  Bible,  they  were  both  sur¬ 
prised  and  amused  at  the  idea  of  these  having  any 
power,  or  even  any  future.  They  called  the  Re¬ 
formed  the  “Pretended  Religion.” 

The  idea  that  from  a  literature  alone,  without  a 
thousand  years  of  organization,  force,  and  economic 
values  behind  it,  there  could  issue  any  permanent 
potency  for  the  making  of  new  men  and  a  new  soci¬ 
ety,  was  regarded  by  prelates  as  rather  a  good  joke. 

The  history  of  the  last  four  hundred  years  shows 
that  these  “sects”  which  had  most  to  do  with  mak¬ 
ing  the  Dutch  Republic,  the  English  Common¬ 
wealth,  and  the  United  States  of  America,  had  more 
power  than  the  popes,  emperors,  and  kings,  dynasties 
and  conquerors,  that  have  come  and  gone. 

There  was  a  professor  in  the  Paris  University, 
born  in  1496  and  bearing  a  name  that  is  common  in 
our  telephone  directories,  La  Febre,  or  Lefevre,  a 
Doctor  of  the  Sorbonne.  He  was  what  is  called,  even 
yet,  a  “good  Catholic.”  Studying  the  Bible,  he 
found  in  it  much  wonderful  truth  and  many  fresh 
ideas  —  as  all  will  who  make  themselves  familiar 
with  the  old  writings  of  deep  thinkers,  whether  in 
“the  classics”  or  “Holy  Writ.”  Mr.  Gladstone  and 
the  Pope  alike  recommended  the  study  of  ancient 
theology  to  freshen  the  brain.  Such  study  un¬ 
shackles  the  mind. 

Lefevre  introduced  the  study  of  this  wonderful 
literature  as  a  new  science  —  or  one  old  enough  to 
seem  new  —  and  gave  lectures  upon  what  he  had 

61 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


read.  The  lords  and  ladies  of  the  Court  attended 
and  were  delighted.  The  King’s  sister,  Margaret  of 
Valois,  a  highly  cultivated  woman,  with  many  of 
the  nobles,  was  charmed  and  became  an  adherent. 
Work  went  on  and  ideas  spread.  Even  bishops  co¬ 
labored  with  Farel,  the  Swiss  Reformer,  whom  we 
may  call  the  spiritual  father  of  Calvin.  It  was  he 
who  told  the  King  of  France  that  the  Huguenot 
anvil  would  wear  out  all  hammers  that  strike  it. 

France  had  three  other  teachers,  who  were  in 
Paris  at  one  and  the  same  time,  Calvin,  Rabelais, 
and  Loyola.  The  first  was  the  champion  of  freedom 
and  democracy  in  the  Church  and  of  our  public 
schools.  Our  great  historian  Bancroft  fitly  calls  Cal¬ 
vin  “the  father  of  popular  education,  the  inventor 
of  the  system  of  free  schools.” 

Rabelais  destroyed  respect  for  sacred  things  and 
good  government.  Yet  to  his  influence,  the  great 
Belgian  prose  epic  “The  Legend  of  the  Glorious 
Adventures  of  Tyl  Ulenspiegel,”  which  Charles  de 
Coster  put  in  modern  form,  owes  its  existence. 

Loyola  instituted  the  order  of  the  Jesuits,  which 
were  later  driven  out  of  nearly  every  country  in 
Europe. 

“  It  was  a  time,”  Guizot  tells  us,  “when  two  con¬ 
trary  winds  were  blowing  over  Europe  .  .  .  one  car¬ 
rying  skepticism  and  licentiousness,  while  the  other 
breathed  only  Christian  faith  and  the  severest  mo¬ 
rality.” 

France  made  her  choice,  with  the  result  that  the 

62 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 


French  became  great  in  everything  but  religion, 
morality,  and  self-government.  The  aristocratic  in 
France  found  the  Bible  religion  too  severe.  Instead 
of  Calvinism,  with  its  high  and  pure  virtue  and  se¬ 
rious  temper,  the  French  rulers  chose  rather  to  follow 
tradition,  frivolous  skepticism,  and  reactionary  fa¬ 
naticism  —  which  issued  in  as  cruel  persecutions  as 
ever  were  known  to  Iroquois,  Apaches,  or  Pawnees. 
From  the  seed  sown  by  her  accepted  teachers  she 
reaped  the  harvest  of  the  Revolution  of  1793. 

The  same  methods  as  those  used  in  war  in  Asia 
and  in  Africa  were  employed  in  France  and  Spain 
to  stamp  out  the  New  Religion,  as  it  was  called. 
Steeped  in  the  ideas  of  feudalism,  men  in  Church 
and  State  imagined  that  truth  was  like  wood  and 
could  be  burned  to  ashes  by  fire.  Dr.  Guillot  was  not 
yet  born,  and  the  sheep-killing  machine,  which  he  in¬ 
vented  and  which  was  named  after  him,  was  not  yet 
in  use  for  human  beings;  but  the  hre,  the  sword, 
the  scourge,  and  the  red-hot  iron  were  at  hand.  The 
decapitating  machine,  that  made  Paris  a  slaughter 
house,  came  later. 

The  king,  Henry  IV,  who  was  at  first  delighted 
with  the  old  truths  so  freshly  presented,  changed  his 
mind.  Surrounded  as  he  was  by  priests  and  monks, 
he  began  to  think  it  dangerous  when  such  a  book  got 
among  the  common  people.  Priestcraft,  in  every 
land  and  age,  is  always  in  terror  of  too  much  general 
education  among  the  people.  The  New  Testament, 
when  translated  into  French,  which  every  one 

63 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


could  read,  meant  what  the  Great  Democrat  and 
Lover  of  the  People  had  said,  “The  truth  shall  make 
you  free.”  In  the  older  Testament,  they  found  that 
a  large  part  of  it  consisted  of  the  history  of  slaves, 
who  had  escaped  from  tyrant  kings  and  formed  re¬ 
publics  and  chosen  their  own  rulers,  and  that  this 
early  history  was  followed  by  good  laws  and  songs  of 
deliverance.  That  is  what  the  Old  Testament  con¬ 
sists  of  —  Law,  History,  Poetry,  and  Prophecy,  or, 
in  the  Hebrew  Bible,  of  Law,  Prophecy,  and  Litera¬ 
ture. 

At  once  the  French  monarch  and  court,  kingcraft 
and  priestcraft,  saw  the  danger  of  letting  the  people 
know  the  Bible  record,  which  showed  that  kings 
and  the  so-called  saints  were  sinners  like  common 
people. 

So  “the  King’s  religion”  prevailed  by  the  power 
of  the  sword,  the  fagot,  and  the  dragoons.  These 
hunted  out  Christians,  as  bloodhounds  were  used  to 
track  out  slaves,  and  they  did  their  work  thoroughly. 
Like  a  lioness  devouring  her  cub,  France,  having 
tasted  the  blood  of  her  own  children,  was  roused  to  a 
fury  of  hate,  and  sent  them  into  exile.  Thus  she 
helped  to  enrich  other  countries,  to  colonize  Amer¬ 
ica,  and  to  make  herself  poorer.  When  at  last  she 
had  a  revolution,  which  swept  away  feudal  and  royal 
ideas,  while  so  changing  the  method  of  holding  prop¬ 
erty  as  to  become  the  country  with  the  greatest  num¬ 
ber  of  landowners,  her  manner  of  doing  it,  in  fright¬ 
fulness,  startled  the  world.  The  French  Revolution 

64 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 

set  a  red  blotch  on  the  pages  of  history,  with  reac¬ 
tions  toward  two  eras  of  Napoleonism.  Emissaries 
in  President  Washington’s  time  attempted  to  infect 
America  with  French  notions  and  methods  of  revo¬ 
lution;  but  the  teachings  of  Calvin,  Luther,  Zwingli, 
as  much  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  inheritances  and  the 
firmness  and  vision  of  Washington,  saved  us  from 
“the  red  fool  fury  of  the  Seine,”  giving  us  orderly 
evolution,  instead  of  a  revolution  that  broke  with 
the  past. 

In  French  history  the  Huguenots  became  a  pow¬ 
erful  political  party,  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastical  body 
of  believers,  whose  activities  need  not  concern  us 
here,  except  so  far  as  to  differentiate  clearly  the 
ethnic  relations  of  the  two  Christian  communities, 
Belgic  Walloon  and  French  Huguenot,  that  held  to 
the  same  form  of  faith  and  spoke  the  same  language. 
Both  helped  in  the  one  object  and  enterprise  of 
becoming  inhabitants  of  those  United  Colonies,  to 
which,  on  the  9th  of  September,  1776,  by  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress,  was  given  the  name  of  “The  United 
States.” 

The  true  origin  of  the  term  Huguenot  is  not  cer¬ 
tainly  known.  It  has  been  sought  to  be  derived  from 
a  small  coin,  minted  in  France  about  1560;  from  the 
German  word,  eidengenossen,  meaning  men  banded 
or  confederated;  from  the  saint,  Hugo;  from  Huss- 
guenons,  Huguenons,  or  apes  of  John  Huss;  from  the 
Flemish  Heghenen,  meaning  precisian  or  Puritan;  or 
even  from  a  mispronunciation  of  the  old  Greek  term 

65 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


for  gnostic  or  heretic.  It  is  most  probable  that  the 
English  form  of  the  word  came  in  from  the  Low 
Countries,  where  “Huguenoot”  referred  to  one  in 
the  household  of  the  [Reformed]  faith.  Both  “Wal¬ 
loon”  and  “Huguenot”  follow  the  same  analogy  of 
form,  spelling,  and  pronunciation,  though  the  latter 
was  shortened  to  its  present  form. 

Whatever  be  the  origin  of  the  term  “Huguenot,” 
or  of  Reformed  Christianity  in  France,  neither  was 
of  foreign  origin.  Both  grew  up  out  of  the  soil,  as 
naturally  as  a  violet  or  a  lily,  and  the  perfume  of  the 
lives  of  the  converts  was  like  that  of  the  flower  gar¬ 
dens.  The  term  as  that  of  a  distinct  party  was  not 
applied  until  about  1560,  the  partisans  of  Henry  IV 
being  so  called. 

Any  fixed  system,  by  which  men  make  money,  get 
their  living,  or  gain  revenue,  honor,  ease  or  privilege, 
is  hard  to  change.  Those  who  try  to  reform  it  are 
considered  dangerous  enemies  to  society,  and  as  not 
only  heretics,  but  even  traitors.  Greed,  ambition, 
love  of  pleasure  and  comfort  may  be  rooted  in  any 
religion,  so  miscalled.  It  is  so  much  more  easy  to  use 
force,  instead  of  brains  or  argument.  So  in  France, 
Reformed  Christianity  was  put  down  by  cavalry, 
infantry,  and  artillery,  by  massacre  and  fire,  and  the 
Huguenots  were  cast  out.  Yet  the  process  was  like 
shoveling  gold  into  other  lands  and  thus  mightily 
enriching  England,  the  Dutch  Republic,  Denmark, 
Sweden,  Russia,  Germany,  Switzerland,  the  two 
Americas,  and  South  Africa.  Nevertheless,  Chris- 

"  66 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 


tianity  was  itself  a  heresy  banned  by  the  Church 
and  therefore  under  political  persecution,  wherever 
Church  and  State  were  united.  “The  world  grows 
by  heresy.” 

In  Belgic  Land,  the  Walloons  were  and  are  always 
ready  for  new  ideas,  even  though  they  do  not  hold  to 
them  or  persevere  as  tenaciously  as  do  the  Flemings. 
Being  so  near  France,  the  fires  of  faith  were  easily 
kindled  among  them.  The  Walloons  exercising  their 
minds,  tens  of  thousands  of  them  quickly  became 
Huguenots  in  their  church  life.  The  province  of 
Hainault  and  the  city  of  Valenciennes  were  the  foci 
of  their  activities.  We  must  not  forget  that  some  of 
the  richest  cities  now  in  northeastern  France  were 
formerly  Belgic  and  Walloon. 

Walloons  and  French  love  music  and  song.  In 
1540,  in  Paris,  Clement  Marot,  professor  of  Hebrew 
at  the  Sorbonne,  who  has  already  been  noticed, 
wishing  to  improve  the  public  taste,  translated  into 
French  verse  some  twenty  —  and  still  later,  thirty 
of  the  psalms.  The  words,  fitly  chosen,  were  full  of 
beauty  and  sweetness.  The  metre  was  in  the  style 
of  the  popular  ballads,  which  everybody  could  sing 
and  the  melodies  were  “catchy” ;  for  here  was  a  case 
of  “immortal  music  married  to  immortal  words.” 
Marot  built  his  “miracle  of  song”  on  the  founda¬ 
tions  laid  by  Depres.  Soon  the  ladies  and  gentlemen 
at  Court  were  singing  Holy  Scripture  in  verse. 

Then  the  fashion  spread  rapidly  to  all  classes. 
Without  knowing  or  intending  it,  Marot  gave  a 

67 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


mighty  impulse  to  the  gospel  and  the  religion  of  the 
apostles’  days.  In  the  Swiss  Republic,  the  French¬ 
men,  Calvin  and  Beza,  saw  at  once  the  power  of  mu¬ 
sic  and  song,  which  even  boys  and  girls  enjoyed. 
They  realized  that  congregational  singing,  as  if  on 
wings,  would  make  the  gospel  fly  into  many  lands. 
So  Beza  translated  and  versified  a  hundred  more  of 
the  Hebrew  psalms,  making  a  hymnbook  for  the 
whole  body  of  Huguenot  churches.  These,  in  many 
editions,  were  bound  up  with  the  Bible. 

The  joy  and  delight  of  the  popular  singing  of  holy 
thoughts  and  words  spread  like  a  prairie  fire  over  all 
Europe.  Instead  of  the  churches  having  only  old 
Latin  choral  music,  as  sung  by  a  few,  the  glad  mes¬ 
sages  from  Holy  Writ  were  heard  in  song  by  hun¬ 
dreds  of  congregations.  In  tens  of  thousands  of 
homes,  hearts  and  voices  were  joined  to  make  better 
life  and  manners  and  love  of  the  beautiful.  At  first 
and  for  some  years,  all  Christians  of  every  name 
joined  in  psalm  singing  for  mutual  good.  Later  on, 
Christians  enjoyed  a  glorious  hymnology,  which 
enriched  life  in  church  and  home. 

In  the  songs  and  music  of  Marot,  which  are  the 
same  as  are  still  sung  in  the  Huguenot  churches 
throughout  the  world  to-day,  the  undying  fire  of  the 
Hebrew  lyrics  was  enkindled  anew.  They  very  early 
resounded  in  the  Walloon  homes  in  New  Netherland 
and  New  York.  When  after  1685  this  Middle  Re¬ 
gion  of  toleration  began  to  be  peopled  by  Huguenots 
from  France,  Marot’s  psalms  were  heard  in  place  of 

68 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 

J 

chimes  or  carillons.  The  worshipers,  on  foot  or  in  ve¬ 
hicles,  journeying  every  Saturday  for  divine  service, 
from  New  Rochelle  to  the  Marketfield  Street  church 
on  Manhattan,  compassed  the  long  distance  from 
New  Rochelle  with  these  songs  of  joy  and  deliver¬ 
ance. 

The  new  life  of  Europe,  in  the  Reformation,  be¬ 
gan  in  France  and  Belgic  Land  when  music  was  in  its 
renaissance  with  song,  organ,  and  carillon;  for  even 
the  chimes  in  the  belfries  rang  out  Marot’s  psalms. 
In  Germany,  the  Reformation,  starting  in  the  time 
of  the  new  invention,  or  importation,  of  movable 
types,  proceeded  more  by  printing  presses,  ink,  and 
types.  Two  hundred  thousand  Bibles  are  said  to 
have  been  produced  within  a  decade. 

By  contrast  in  the  air,  by  voice  and  in  the  heart, 
it  was  melody  that  rolled  out  from  the  Huguenots 
wherever  found.  French  music  is  infused  with  pas¬ 
sion,  German  with  intellect,  Italian  with  melody. 
This  grand  passion  in  the  soul  issued  to  the  making 
in  time  of  a  new  France,  which,  in  our  day,  after 
many  reverses  and  afflictions,  has  come  to  the  Hu¬ 
guenot  position  —  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  pri¬ 
vate  judgment,  free  public  schools,  general  educa¬ 
tion,  and  a  republicanism  tending  to  democracy;  in 
a  word,  to  the  ideas  of  Calvin,  one  of  the  most  illus¬ 
trious  of  the  many  illustrious  sons  of  France. 

In  the  Netherlands,  the  land’s  Lord  Paramount 
was  that  same  Philip  II,  who  “  promoted  the  colo¬ 
nization  of  America  ’  ’  in  two  ways :  first  by  sending, 

69 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

in  1565,  a  naval  expedition  with  twenty-five  hundred 
men,  to  murder  the  French  Huguenots  in  Florida 
and  to  destroy  their  settlement;  and,  in  the  second 
place,  by  depopulating  as  far  as  he  was  able  the  rich¬ 
est  part  of  his  dominions  and  of  Europe,  the  Nether¬ 
lands.  “  In  1566,  he  wrote  to  his  ambassador  at  the 
Holy  See,  to  tell  the  pope,  that  if  he  found  himself 
obliged  to  use  force  it  would  ‘involve  the  utter  de¬ 
struction  of  this  country’!  But  he  added  that  he 
would  resolve  on  that  rather  than  ‘  be  in  thought  or 
will  a  lord  of  heretics.’”  A  few  years  later,  unable 
either  to  forget  or  to  learn  anything,  he  dispatched 
for  the  conquest  of  England  another  naval  expedi¬ 
tion,  pompously  named  the  Invincible  Armada,  — 
loaded  with  bilboes  and  shackles  —  and  all  done  in 
the  name  of  Christ  and  of  the  saints. 

After  such  exhibitions  of  insanity  in  rulers,  one 
need  not  wonder  at  the  rise  of  a  new  kind  of  state, 
such  as  the  American  Commonwealth,  from  which 
kings  and  thrones  and  the  powers  of  united  Church 
and  State  were  abolished. 

Philip  II  had  only  royal  and  autocratic  ideas  and 
thus  he  reasoned :  was  not  his  army  not  only  the  fin¬ 
est  in  Europe,  the  first  to  be  armed  wholly  with 
muskets,  and  were  not  the  two  thousand  women  (of 
the  wrong  kind)  sent  too  in  the  name  of  the  Holy 
Father  in  Rome  and  the  Holy  Mother  Church,  to 
sally  forth  as  Crusaders  to  convert  or  kill?  Alva 
would  attend  to  both  orthodoxy  and  economics  — 
enforce  Christ’s  blessed  gospel  and  also  lay  a  tax  of 

70 


WHERE  THE  REFORMATION  BEGAN 


the  tenth  penny.  How  could  God  allow  failure  to 
such  a  beneficent  policy?  Yet  somehow  the  Nether- 
landers  could  not  and  would  not  agree  to  this.  So 
they  were  heretics. 

The  world  of  to-day  rejoices  in  a  more  hopeful 
Spain  and  a  more  spiritual  papacy  for  the  blessing 
of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  WALLOON  HERO:  GUIDO  DE  BRAY 

The  prelates  soon  discovered  that  the  new  music, 
and  especially  the  words  of  the  Hebrew  lyrics  put 
into  French,  were  not  favorable  to  the  centralized 
government  of  the  corporation  at  Rome.  Under  in¬ 
fluence  of  the  powers  ruling  supreme  in  that  city  and 
region,  the  Old  Church  people  gave  up  congrega¬ 
tional  singing,  and  let  the  Reformed  children  of 
faith  and  praise  have  the  new  songs  all  to  them¬ 
selves. 

This  was  like  “giving  wings  to  a  tiger.”  It  put 
into  the  hands  of  Calvin  and  the  Geneva  reformers, 
who  were  passionate  lovers  of  beauty  and  true  art,  a 
tremendous  weapon  of  defense  and  an  instrument 
of  propagation,  which  is  powerful  even  to  this  day. 
With  vocal  music  and  popular  song,  the  good  news 
of  God  flew,  as  on  wings  to  millions,  whose  only  idea 
of  what  the  Bible  was  had  been  derived  from  the 
mass  and  ritual  —  told  in  Latin,  a  dead  language. 
Now,  with  the  Bible,  the  literature  of  power,  put 
into  a  tongue  which  the  people  could  understand, 
with  song  and  psalm  on  their  lips  also,  not  only  in 
the  church,  but  in  the  home,  at  work,  and  in  play, 
the  morning  of  a  long  day  of  general  happiness  broke 
brightly.  In  all  the  human  story  none  has  laid  a 

72 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


broader  or  firmer  basis  for  “the  durable  satisfac¬ 
tions  of  life,”  or  of  enduring  joy  and  power,  than  the 
Puritan  —  the  true  son  of  truth,  and  not  his  coun¬ 
terfeit,  the  hypocrite. 

Yet  in  this  new  pleasure,  there  was  something  else 
than  sensuous  and  intellectual  enjoyment.  It  led  to 
better  standards  of  life,  purer  and  more  exalted.  It 
helped  to  banish  the  low,  vulgar  songs  of  lust.  Those 
who  have  read  of  the  cult  of  St.  Goliard  and  the  vile 
abuse  made  of  “music,  heavenly  maid”  by  male 
singers  who  had  good  voices,  but  bad  characters, 
and  the  moral  devastation  wrought  by  them,  can  un¬ 
derstand  the  purifying  and  uplifting  power  of  the 
new  music,  on  which  floated  divine  and  inspiring 
thoughts. 

Hence  from  the  first,  the  Huguenots  were  noted 
for  the  singular  purity  of  their  lives.  Indeed,  they 
have  ever  been  the  salt  which  has  preserved  what  is 
best  in  the  life  of  modern  France,  where  conscience  is 
now  free.  Ethics  and  religion  were  vitally  connected 
and  the  one  fed  the  other. 

While  in  England  and  Scotland  too  many  of  the 
Puritans  cast  away  their  organs  and  musical  instru¬ 
ments,  the  Netherlanders  retained  these  to  their 
profit.  Their  congregational  singing,  thus  improved, 
had  no  superior  in  any  land. 

Nevertheless,  after  ascribing  to  music  and  song 
their  full  part  in  the  awakening  of  the  Netherlanders 
to  reform  in  religion,  we  must  not  ignore  other  influ¬ 
ences,  deep,  lasting,  and  long  at  work,  in  transform- 

73 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


in g  especially  the  Walloons.  Seen  in  perspective  the 
succession  of  vivifying  ideas  is  almost  unbroken. 

During  the  onrushing  centuries,  from  the  time  of 
the  Verdun  Compact,  in  843  a.d.,  to  the  great  Ref¬ 
ormation,  the  twofold  development  of  the  Belgic 
people  went  on.  In  Flanders,  civilization  was  more 
and  more  influenced  by  Germany,  Flemish  blood  and 
speech  being  more  akin  to  those  in  the  Teutonic 
world.  The  southern  or  Walloon  people  were 
moulded  by  the  fortunes  and  culture  of  the  Gauls, 
the  Gallo-Romans  and  the  French. 

During  these  centuries  the  work  of  the  Church 
and  the  saints  or  missionaries  was  a  noble  one,  for 
the  whole  country  became  more  or  less  Christian. 
Roughly  we  may  say  that  several  civilizations,  one 
after  another,  with  their  representatives,  in  speech, 
ideas,  and  dynasties,  had  come  and  gone.  Under  the 
Romans,  Christianity  made  a  beginning  in  softening 
rude  manners  and  in  every  way  improving  the  con¬ 
ditions  of  social  and  political  life.  The  Romans  in¬ 
troduced  many  good  things,  such  as  roads,  farms, 
letters,  writing,  and  architecture. 

The  Franks  came  out  of  the  Northeast.  They 
destroyed  in  large  measure  Roman  civilization,  but 
they  built  up  another,  different  in  form  and  spirit. 
Coming  as  pagans,  they  adopted  Christianity.  The 
Frankish  Empire,  under  the  Church  and  civiliza¬ 
tion,  was  rebuilt.  There  were  still  much  cruelty 
and  barbarism,  but  the  teachers  of  religion  strove 
“to  bring  charity,  art,  and  culture  into  the  world.” 

74 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


So  we  may  say  that  as  the  pagan  Celts  had  been 
civilized  in  the  third  century,  so  the  pagan  Franks 
were  in  the  seventh. 

Then  out  of  the  North,  but  nearer  the  pole  and 
from  the  lands  of  the  aurora  borealis,  Sweden,  Nor¬ 
way,  and  Denmark  —  they  were  all  “Danes”  then 
—  came  the  Normans,  or  Norsemen,  in  their  keeled 
boats  with  dragon-prows,  piloted  by  the  ravens. 
Being  one  in  their  savagery,  greed,  traditions,  and 
impulses  to  exploration,  their  expeditions  were  not  at 
first  strictly  in  the  interests  of  science,  or  art,  or  reli¬ 
gion.  Yet  they  were  partly  Christianized  and  they 
too  advanced  Belgic  civilization.  Under  them,  some 
of  the  oldest  names  now  among  us,  such  as  Baldwin 
and  de  Forest,  had  their  origin.  When  they  left  the 
country,  barbarism  again  triumphed  over  civiliza¬ 
tion,  and  the  work  of  the  Church  had  to  be  done 
over  again  with  greater  zeal  and  earnestness. 

With  the  churches  was  ushered  in  the  era  of  the 
bells  and  belfries,  adding  new  features  to  the  Belgic 
landscape  and  making  of  the  Netherlands  the  Coun¬ 
try  of  the  Carillons.  The  first  idea  and  purpose  of 
the  bells,  when  joined  to  the  church  edifice,  was  to 
warn  off  all  imps,  demons,  and  evil  spirits.  Later 
they  were  rung  in  storm,  or  at  the  hour  of  dusk  to 
guide  travelers  to  shelter. 

During  these  centuries,  from  the  ninth  to  the 
thirteenth,  the  Christian  Church,  in  its  various  ex¬ 
ternal  forms,  was  the  mother  of  art,  while  the  sacred 
edifices,  along  with  the  castles  and  monasteries,  be- 

75 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


came  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  land¬ 
scape,  so  far  as  this  was  affected  by  man.  The  influ¬ 
ence  of  religion  penetrated  the  family  and  beautified 
the  home.  The  lives  of  the  good  men  and  women  in 
the  Church  were  models  for  imitation,  and  the  baptis¬ 
mal  names  of  infants  were  borrowed  as  inspiring  re¬ 
membrancers.  Even  the  leader  of  the  Walloon  set¬ 
tlement  of  1624  in  New  York,  Jesse  de  Forest,  bore  a 
name  which  of  old  was  Josse,  that  of  a  Belgian  saint. 

Some  scholars  —  usually  devoted  followers  of  the 
papacy  —  think  that  the  thirteenth  was  the  greatest 
of  all  the  centuries.  In  one  view  it  was,  for,  beside 
its  great  creations,  the  Italian  monopoly  of  the  reli¬ 
gion  of  Europe  west  of  Constantinople  attained  its 
highest  splendor  in  this  time  of  the  “  Middle,”  or,  as 
some  say,  the  “  Dark”  Ages;  while  others  think  these 
were  the  “Ages  of  Faith.”  Then  the  Bible  was 
heard  of  only  in  a  dead  language,  and  few  could  read 
or  write.  Celibacy  had  been  made  the  rule  for  the 
priests;  that  is,  almost  the  entire  body  of  educated 
men  were  condemned  to  single  life.  Then  the  home 
was  degraded  and  centuries  of  intellectual  sterility 
followed.  The  celibate  priest  and  knight,  but  not 
the  scholar  or  man  of  science,  swayed  the  minds  of 
men.  The  thinker  was  feared,  as  if  a  child  of  the  Evil 
One.  Only  very  few  were  able  to  form  judgments 
of  their  own. 

Nevertheless  there  were  always  some  who  held  to 
the  ideals  of  the  Christ  and  his  apostles  and  to  the 
simple  norm  of  the  Christian  faith.  To  them  Chris- 

'  76 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


tianity  was  not  a  form  of  words,  a  set  of  symbols,  or 
a  method  of  government,  but  life  —  even  the  fol¬ 
lowing  of  Him  who  “left  us  an  example.” 

Among  the  Walloons  in  Belgic  Land,  for  example, 
there  was  a  continuous  succession  of  teachers,  who 
challenged  the  pretensions  of  the  Roman  corpora¬ 
tion;  such  as  Tanchelin,  the  Vaudois,  Bulgares, 
Beguines,  Lollards,  Men  of  Intelligence,  Brethren  of 
the  Free  Spirit,  the  Bloemderdines,  Brethren  of  the 
Common  Lot,  Hussites,  Gondolfians,  etc.  All  these 
paved  the  way  for  the  Great  Reformation. 

The  Waldenses  of  Italy,  numbering  thousands  of 
Christians,  held  to  the  simple  faith  of  the  days  of 
the  apostles.  When  these  were  slaughtered,  driven 
away,  or  exiled  by  the  Dukes  of  Savoy,  they  found  a 
champion  in  Cromwell  the  Protector,  in  Milton  the 
poet,  and  in  Leisler  the  American.  Hundreds  of 
these  people  came  to  America,  settling  on  Staten 
Island  and  in  other  places. 

It  was  during  these  centuries,  after  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  that  feudalism  became  the  estab¬ 
lished  order  of  society  and  government  and  the 
framework  of  morals.  Many  nations  passed  through 
its  long  discipline. 

Another  feature  of  organic  life  in  the  Walloon 
churches,  derived  from  France,  was  the  model  of 
government  by  means  of  pastor  and  elders,  with  dea¬ 
cons  to  minister  in  charitable  affairs.  This  govern¬ 
ing  body  was  and  is  called  the  Consistory  —  with 
scriptural  authority  exceeding  that  claimed  by  the 

77 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


papal  Senate,  or  cabinet.  The  Consistory  is  made  up 
of  the  officers  of  the  church  gathered  together.  In 
the  earlier  congregations,  all  members  of  the  church 
voted.  This  ordered,  this  well-regulated  democracy 
was  astounding  to  royalty  and  the  prelates.  Even 
to-day  there  is  an  almost  antipodal  difference  among 
native  Dutch  writers,  in  the  method  and  spirit  of 
their  treatment  of  the  history  of  the  Fatherland,  ac¬ 
cording  as  they  have  lived  within,  or  without,  the  at¬ 
mosphere  of  Christian  home  life  and  the  democracy 
of  the  Reformed  Church. 

How  ready  the  Walloons  always  had  been  to  ac¬ 
cept,  or  at  least  be  interested  in  new  ideas,  is  seen  in 
the  welcome  they  gave  to  the  various  forms  of  truth 
at  different  times,  as  set  forth  by  earnest  preachers; 
so  that  the  region  of  the  southern  or  Walloon  prov¬ 
inces  was  called  by  the  name  (which  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public  afterwards  received),  “The  Land  of  Heresy.” 

It  has  been  remarked  by  Hansen,  the  penetrating 
historian  of  “The  Reformed  Church  in  the  Nether¬ 
lands,”  that  “the  attachment  of  the  people  of  the 
Netherlands  [Republic]  to  Calvinism  [or  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  democracy]  is  in  great  part  to  be  accounted  for 
by  the  influence  of  the  Walloon  congregations.”  It 
is  certainly  worth  recalling  that  the  vengeful  repris¬ 
als  against  Spanish  tyranny  and  the  legal  murders 
wrought  by  infuriated  Protestants  in  the  form  of 
burning  monks  alive,  were  at  the  hands  of  the  Flem¬ 
ings,  and  not  the  Walloons.  Hansen  adds  the  names 
of  the  four  eminent  preachers  of  the  Reformed 

78 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


doctrines,  Guido  de  Bray,  Henry  Modet,  Franciscus 
Junius,  of  Walloon,  and  Petrus  d’Athenus,  of  Flem¬ 
ish  origin. 

The  very  names  of  these  Walloon  churches,  organ¬ 
ized  as  early  as  1561,  reveal  their  animus  as  being 
gentle  and  charitable.  They  were  known  among 
themselves  by  distinctive  terms,  in  imitation  of  the 
societies  of  the  rhetoricians,  such  as  the  Rose  Tree, 
Rosebud,  Vineyard,  Sword,  Lily,  Palm  Tree,  Olive 
Tree,  Wheat  Sheaf,  Violet,  and  Roosevelt,  or  Rose 
Field.  Of  their  secret  synods,  in  the  years  1563, 
1564,  1566,  the  last  was  the  most  important.  In 
1567,  the  murderous  Spanish  army  was  on  the  soil 
and  Guido  de  Bray  was  made  a  martyr  to  “truth 
on  the  scaffold.” 

This  lion-hearted  hero  was  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  Walloons.  He  was  not  a  fighter  with  swords  or 
spears,  he  did  not  burn  men  alive,  or  wish  to  do 
so,  but  with  pen  and  voice  he  fought  the  good  fight 
of  faith,  for  purity  of  life  and  for  the  original  gen¬ 
uine  gospel.  Our  Motley,  the  fascinating  historian, 
scarcely  more  than  mentions  the  name  of  Guy  de 
Bres,  or  Guido  de  Bray,  and  utterly  ignores  his  work. 
Yet  the  Belgic  Confession  of  Faith,  from  his  pen,  is 
one  of  the  noblest  monuments  of  Walloon  literature. 
What  he  did  proved  to  be  even  greater  in  lasting  re¬ 
sults  upon  four  nations,  Holland,  England,  Germany, 
and  the  United  States  than  that  of  some  of  Motley’s 
heroes,  who  occupy  many  pages  in  that  author’s 
dramatic  narrative.  To-day  the  Reformer’s  great 

79 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

writing,  “The  Belgic  Confession,”  is  studied  on  all 
continents. 

Guido  de  Bray,  or  Guy  de  Bres  (Flemish  and  Wal¬ 
loon  forms  of  the  same  name),  born  in  1640  at  Mons, 
had  more  to  do  with  the  making  of  the  Dutch  Repub¬ 
lic  and  the  United  States  of  America  than  many  a 
more  famous  man.  He  was  a  champion  of  ordered 
freedom  in  Christ,  of  liberty  under  law,  and  of  the 
right  of  the  individual  to  interpret  the  Scriptures. 
At  that  time,  whether  right  or  wrong,  the  general  im¬ 
pression  about  these  Christians  nicknamed  Anabap¬ 
tists  was,  that  they  were  opposed,  not  only  to  all  or¬ 
der  and  government,  but  to  all  decency.  Certainly 
in  Hainault,  in  a  time  of  economic  distress,  these  tur¬ 
bulent  people  committed  great  excesses,  yet  they 
never  equaled  orthodox  churchmen  in  brutality. 
Because  of  this  wrong  impression,  sedulously  kept 
up  by  the  priests,  thousands  of  innocent  persons,  Bi¬ 
ble  Christians,  who  were  horrified  at  the  idea  of  be¬ 
ing  anarchists,  or  violators  of  law,  either  human  or 
divine,  were  put  to  death.  This  was  because,  as 
a  rule,  most  people,  including  especially  political 
church  rulers,  led  by  Alva,  the  Spaniard,  were  only 
too  slow  to  discriminate,  provided  they  could  kill, 
burn,  or  —  what  was  often  the  chief  motive  in  the 
case  —  confiscate  property  whether  of  Catholic  or 
of  Protestant.  Millions  of  human  beings,  pure  and 
righteous  in  God’s  sight,  have  been  put  to  death 
through  ignorance  or  suspicion,  and  of  these  Alva 
slew  thousands. 


80 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


It  was  the  mission  of  Guido  de  Bray  to  clear  the 
good  name  of  true  Christians  from  specific  slanders. 
He  wrote  a  book,  a  rare  copy  of  which  the  writer  of 
this  work  has  examined.  It  was  directed  against  the 
Anabaptists.  The  chief  motive  for  his  composing 
the  Belgic  Confession  of  Faith  was  for  the  purpose 
of  clearing  his  fellow  believers  from  false  charges. 

His  next  great  aim  was  to  unite  all  Christians  of 
the  Reformed  faith  in  one  body  of  love  and  mutual 
service,  but  not  by  means  of  fire,  torture,  infantry, 
cavalry,  and  artillery,  such  as  Philip  II  employed, 
but  in  charity,  and  through  preaching,  teaching,  and 
representative  government.  At  Poitiers,  once  a 
bloody  field  of  war,  he  penned  the  great  confession. 
No  greater  battle  was  ever  fought  or  victory  won 
than  was  wrought  through  the  Belgic  Confession. 

As  a  student,  he  became  master  of  languages,  es¬ 
pecially  those  in  which  the  Bible  was  written,  the 
Hebrew  and  the  Greek  —  the  languages  that  are 
never  dead,  but  are  ever  fresh,  provoking  new 
thought.  These  tongues  possess  the  power  of  an 
endless  life  and  will  never  die  while  humanity 
lives. 

When  this  hero,  as  brave  as  any  soldier  that  ever 
charged  a  battery,  found  himself  surrounded  by 
spies  and  informers  and  likely  to  be  imprisoned,  and 
thus  lose  his  opportunity,  he  fled  to  England,  where 
were  already  thousands  of  his  fellow  refugees.  In 
London  he  met  the  reformers  Bucer,  John  a  Lasco, 
and  others.  Above  all  things  the  Anglican  prelates 

81 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


wished  theirs  to  be  considered  “a  true  Reformed 
Church.”  The  old  edifice  of  the  Austin  Friars  had 
been  given  by  Edward  VI  of  England  to  the  Belgic 
and  Dutch  Pilgrim  Fathers.  It  seems  a  paradox,  but 
the  oldest  of  the  existing  Reformed  Dutch  churches 
was  gathered  on  English  soil.  To  this  day,  the  Neth¬ 
erlands  people  in  London  meet  here  for  worship  in 
the  tongue  of  their  fathers.  In  the  crypt  of  Canter¬ 
bury  Cathedral,  a  Walloon  church  has  worshiped 
since  1550. 

Curiously  enough,  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  kings  al¬ 
lowed  foreign  Non-conformists  to  have  their  own 
church  order,  ritual,  and  doctrines,  even  when  they 
hunted  down  and  drove  out  to  other  countries  the 
Free  Churchmen  who  were  native  Englishmen.  Eco¬ 
nomic  motives  and  ideas  of  expediency  prevailed. 
These  industrious  craftsmen  enriched  the  realm. 

Returning  from  his  first  exile,  Guido  de  Bray 
stayed  for  a  while  in  Mons  (or  Malines)  and  then 
went  into  Switzerland,  studying  first  at  Lausanne, 
then  at  Geneva.  Coming  into  contact  with  the 
greatest  minds  in  Europe  —  those  of  John  Calvin  and 
Theodore  Beza  —  he  became  more  and  more  in  love 
with  freedom  and  law,  and  a  Divine  government, 
older  than  kings  or  thrones. 

Later,  at  Frankfort,  where  was  a  great  congrega¬ 
tion  of  Huguenot  Walloons,  and  where  Jacob  Leis- 
ler  was  born,  he  made  appeal  for  “the  churches  of 
the  Netherlands  waiting  under  the  cross,”  whose  em¬ 
blem  was  the  lily  among  thorns.  At  this  time,  thou- 

82 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


sands  of  Walloons,  ancestors  of  many  of  the  best 
Americans  of  to-day,  were  in  the  Rhine  valley. 

The  uprising  for  liberty  in  the  Belgic  Netherlands 
in  1567,  as  in  1830,  began  in  the  Walloon  country. 
The  cleaning  out  of  the  church  edifices  of  idols  and 
images  had  aroused  the  wrath  of  the  Spanish  mon¬ 
arch  Philip  II  —  the  same  who  ordered  the  massacre 
of  the  Huguenots  in  Florida,  thinking  he  would 
prevent  the  colonization  of  America,  or  the  future 
United  States,  by  men  who  believed  in  progress.  A 
force  of  mercenaries  was  sent  under  Noircarmes  to 
Valenciennes,  where  lived  Guido  de  Bray,  “  the  most 
pestilential  preacher”  in  Spanish  eyes. 

The  special  offense  of  this  ancient  and  beautiful 
city,  founded  by  the  Emperor  Valentinian,  was  that 
its  citizens  had  refused  to  have  quartered  on  them 
a  garrison  of  mercenaries  in  Spanish  pay.  When  the 
citizens  further  claimed  the  privilege  of  free  worship 
as  a  right,  there  arose  a  storm  of  fury  in  Madrid  at 
the  Escurial,  and  in  Brussels,  where  the  regent  Mar¬ 
garet  lived. 

The  story  of  siege  and  assault,  after  the  cannon 
had  knocked  the  city  to  pieces,  on  Palm  Sunday, 
March  23,  1567,  is  brief.  “The  chimes,  which  during 
the  siege  had  been  playing  Marot’s  psalms,  hap¬ 
pened  that  morning  to  be  sounding  forth  from  every 
belfry  the  twenty-second  Psalm:  ‘  My  God,  My  God, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?’  ”  It  was  the  carillon  of 
crucifixion.  After  the  orgy  of  slaughter  by  sword, 
the  two  leaders,  Guido  de  Bray  and  Peregrine  la 

83 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Grange,  were  arrested.  From  prison  they  were 
pushed  off  the  ladder,  even  while  speaking  to  the 
crowd,  and  swung  in  air.  They  died  in  the  body,  to 
live  in  the  hearts  of  thousands  who  helped  to  make 
America. 

In  the  origin  and  development  of  that  era  in  the 
Netherlands,  which  the  men  of  one  obedience  call 
the  4 ‘Troubles”  and  those  of  the  other  “The  War 
for  Independence,”  the  Walloon  provinces  were  the 
first  to  revolt  against  the  despotism  of  abused  power 
in  Church  and  State,  the  first  to  be  stripped  of  their 
population  by  flight,  and  the  first  to  be  forced  into 
reacceptance  of  the  Spanish  yoke. 

In  January,  1579,  the  nobles  in  Artois,  Hainault, 
Cambrai,  and  Walloon  Flanders  formed  the  Union 
of  Arras,  which  stipulated  that  their  true  aim  was  to 
preserve  the  papal  religion  and  uphold  the  author¬ 
ity  of  the  King  of  Spain.  This  action,  which  meant 
secession  from  the  States-General,  was  done  against 
the  protests  of  that  body,  which  insisted  that  it  was 
first  necessary  to  “expel  the  cruel  tyrant  and  com¬ 
mon  enemy  of  all  the  Belgic  race.” 

Nevertheless,  a  few  patriots  in  the  free  Walloon 
cities  continued  the  struggle  for  freedom  of  con¬ 
science  and  of  resistance  to  the  Spanish  tyrant.  The 
last  local  revolt  in  the  Walloon  provinces  was  led  by 
Jean  de  Conde.  From  him  and  his  brother  Allard  are 
descended  most  of  the  Condes  and  Candees  in  the 
United  States.  A  descendant  Jean,  or  John  Cond6, 
settled  near  Boston,  Massachusetts,  in  1639.  The 

84 


GUIDO  DE  BRAY 


exodus  from  Belgic  Land,  begun  in  1544,  had  con¬ 
tinued  with  scarcely  an  interruption  until  1585. 

What  were  the  facts  underlying  this  Union  of  Ar¬ 
ras,  which  virtually  closes  the  story  of  the  Huguenot 
Walloons  in  Belgic  Land? 

It  was  wholly  the  work  of  nobles  and  prelates,  who 
dominated  in  a  land  from  which  the  best  people,  or 
probably  ninety  per  cent,  had  fled,  leaving  only  a 
scanty  population  of  peasants,  who  had  little  or 
nothing  to  say  about  the  acts  of  their  superiors.  The 
final  and  formal  reconciliation  with  Spain  took  place 
May  15,  1579,  and  for  over  two  centuries  Belgic 
Land  became  the  private  property  of  the  Austrians 
and  Spaniards,  and  “the  cockpit  of  Europe.” 

In  January  of  the  year  1579,  the  seven  north¬ 
ern  provinces  formed  the  Union  of  Utrecht.  With 
“freedom  of  religion  for  all  men”  —  within  their 
homes  and  in  their  sacred  edifices  —  with  welcome 
and  shelter  given  to  people  of  every  creed  and 
clime,  the  brilliant  career  —  not  of  “Holland,”  but 
of  the  Republic  of  the  United  Netherlands  —  began. 
Not  only  in  its  early  years,  especially  from  1544  to 
1570,  but  from  England  in  1605  and  later,  when 
James  I  persecuted  Dissenters,  and  from  Germany, 
from  1618  to  1648,  the  Republic  received  thousands 
of  Walloon  refugees,  giving  to  the  world  an  inspiring 
example  of  tolerance. 

What  kinds  of  people  and  varieties  of  human¬ 
ity  were  left  in  the  southern  Netherlands,  after  the 
Union  of  Arras,  was  clearly  discerned  in  that  series  of 

85 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


devastating  campaigns  called  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
from  1616  to  1648.  Few  bodies  of  soldiery  ever  ex¬ 
ceeded,  in  sheer  brutality  and  mere  wantonness  of 
butchery  and  destruction,  the  Austrian  army,  which 
was  composed  largely  of  non-Huguenot  Walloons, 
led  by  John  Tzerclas  Tilly.  This  man,  born  in  Bra¬ 
bant,  proved  himself  a  diligent  pupil  of  such  masters 
of  savage  warfare  as  Alva  and  Requescens.  Succeed¬ 
ing  Wallenstein,  he  stormed  Magdeburg,  May  10, 
1631.  “The  unheard-of  atrocities  which  he  allowed 
the  Croats  and  Walloons  of  his  army  to  perpetrate, 
on  this  occasion,  have  affixed  to  his  otherwise  high 
reputation  a  foul  blot,  uneffaced  by  all  the  cosmetics 
of  his  numerous  apologists.  .  .  .  On  May  14  he  made  a 
solemn  entry  into  the  city  [and]  attended  the  cele¬ 
bration  of  a  Te  Deum  in  the  cathedral.” 


CHAPTER  X  : 

THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 

Many  are  the  emblems  of  divine  grace  and  help  to 
human  character,  and  of  “the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints”  —  whether  as  tried  and  purified  in 
the  fires  of  persecution,  or  stainless  and  white  amid 
worldliness. 

In  one  sense,  even  the  catacombs  of  Rome  are  as 
an  art  gallery,  rich  in  the  treasures  of  early  Christian 
thought  and  feeling.  Yet  after  such  crude  realistic 
illustration,  which  was  chiefly  mural,  Christianity 
emerged  from  the  caves  and  dens  of  the  earth,  into 
the  open  sunlight,  first  of  toleration  and  then  of  free¬ 
dom.  Then,  out  of  Christian  faith  and  feeling,  grew 
a  new  set  of  symbols.  The  mediaeval  ages  gave  ex¬ 
pression  to  inward  emotions,  in  art  on  canvas,  in 
sculpture,  carving,  mosaic,  and  adornment  in  gold 
and  colors,  while  from  architecture  —  mother  and 
nurse  of  all  the  arts  —  was  born  the  Gothic  cathe¬ 
dral. 

Some  of  these  edifices  of  aspiration  and  hope  rose 
into  glory  on  wings  of  beauty.  Others,  well  called 
“frozen  music,”  sang  a  hallelujah  chorus  to  the  Cre¬ 
ator.  The  church  spire  pointed  men’s  thoughts  to 
things  higher  than  earth.  Eternity  seemed  to  take 
visible  form  to  men’s  minds  and  “bring  all  heaven ” 
before  their  eyes. 


87 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Europe  was  made  beautiful,  as  never  before,  by 
Christian  art,  that  far  excelled  in  charm  both  the 
days  of  classic  form  and  the  splendors  of  Oriental 
decoration;  for,  while  the  spirit  and  even  the  master¬ 
pieces  of  genius  in  Babylon,  Egypt,  Greece,  or  Rome 
were  pagan  and  earthly,  the  soul  of  Gothic  architec¬ 
ture  seemed  to  soar,  like  an  eagle  towards  Heaven. 

Yet  still  in  the  cerements  of  dogma  and  in  the  fet¬ 
ters  of  human  authority,  the  individual  soul,  at  its 
best,  dwelt  only  in  “dim  religious  light.”  More¬ 
over,  as  a  sinister  inheritance  from  the  Jews,  those 
who  claimed  the  monopoly  of  religion  made  this  an 
engine  of  government.  They  not  only  preached  in¬ 
tolerance  as  a  duty,  according  to  alleged  divine  com¬ 
mand,  but  they  reverted  to  the  old  methods  of 
Joshua  in  Canaan  and  Samuel  in  Israel,  until  they 
outrivaled  Mahomet  and  his  methods  of  propagat¬ 
ing  the  faith. 

Instead  of  believing  in  the  infallibility  of  holy  per¬ 
secutors,  two  of  the  founders  of  America,  Roger 
Williams  and  William  Penn,  taught  that  “whoever 
is  right,  the  persecutor  is  wrong.” 

When  the  radiance  of  the  recovered  Holy  Scrip¬ 
tures,  as  in  a  new  morning,  broke  over  Europe,  there 
was  erected  even  a  nobler  edifice.  Though  not  made 
with  hands,  it  outshone  in  spiritual  glory  even  the 
visible  grandeurs  of  St.  Peter’s,  or  Rheims,  or  Ami¬ 
ens.  Invisible  to  the  eye  of  flesh  and  blood,  it  was  a 
building  of  the  Spirit,  with  the  adornment  of  private 
interpretation  and  beautiful  with  self-government. 

88 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 


It  incarnated  the  apostle’s  word,  “  Where  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty.” 

The  believer’s  earthly  home  became  even  more 
lovely  than  the  cathedral.  After  the  manner  of  the 
primitive  Christians,  there  arose  the  reading  of  the 
Bible,  in  the  household  and  family  worship,  based  on 
the  priesthood  of  believers,  as  authorized  in  the  New 
Testament.  In  church  life,  “the  crowning  fact,  the 
Kingliest  act  of  freedom  .  .  .  the  freeman’s  vote,”  be¬ 
came  law  and  custom.  Even  the  common  man  could 
see  that  in  moral  grandeur,  self-government  excelled 
that  from  the  stately  chair  of  the  bishop  under  “the 
antique  bowed  roof.”  In  his  approach,  as  invited 
guest,  to  the  “sacrament,”  or  oath  of  allegiance,  at 
the  Lord’s  Supper,  and  in  direct  prayer  to  the  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  Our  Father  in  Heaven,  the 
glory  of  a  private  Christian  could  make  ridiculous 
the  pomp  of  crowned  emperors  and  ecclesiastics  in 
miters  and  millinery. 

The  rights  of  the  true  church  member,  guaran¬ 
teed  by  the  fundamental  law  of  the  Founder,  as  laid 
down  in  the  New  Testament,  emptied  papal  con¬ 
claves  and  the  centralized  power  by  the  river  Tiber 
of  all  meaning.  The  bulls  of  the  papacy,  the  edicts  of 
autocrats,  the  mandates  of  kings  touched  him  not.  In 
himself  and  in  the  congregation,  the  communion  of 
saints,  he  had  not  only  the  best  rule  of  life,  in  self- 
restraint,  but  also  the  surest  safeguard  of  public  or¬ 
der  and  progress.  Sweeping  away  the  symbols,  he 
reached  reality.  Yet  for  him  eternal  vigilance  was 

89 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


the  price  of  liberty,  while  keeping  the  middle  path 
between  the  libertine  and  the  autocrat  in  religion. 

By  rejecting  this  reformed  constitution  of  society 
and  casting  out  those  who  adopted  it,  France  and 
the  Latin  nations  became  great  in  many  things,  but 
not  in  the  path  of  that  ordered  freedom  and  self-gov¬ 
ernment,  which  is  even  now  uplifting  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth.  France,  in  many  ways  the  hero  nation, 
had  to  postpone,  for  nearly  three  centuries,  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  a  republic  and  stable  government.  The 
French  Revolution  was  the  reaction  against  centu¬ 
ries  of  repression  of  mind  and  body.  In  our  day, 
France  has  confessed  her  mistake  by  giving  equal 
freedom  to  all  cults,  rectifying  the  mistake  of  centu¬ 
ries,  and  accepting  the  Huguenot  contention. 

When  driven  from  the  old  houses  of  worship  in 
the  Netherlands,  the  Belgic  Christians  went  into  the 
fields,  where  “hedge  preaching”  and  psalm-singing 
were  the  rule.  Their  churches  were  not  made  of 
stone,  decorated  with  art  or  graven  by  man’s  device, 
but  were  under  the  blue  sky,  where  God  “spread  out 
the  heavens  like  a  tent  to  dwell  in.”  Instead  of  but¬ 
tressed  walls,  towers,  and  spires  of  stone,  lifted  up 
towards  the  empyrean  and  which  under  the  chisel 
were  made  to  blossom  into  beauty,  they  found 
within  their  own  souls  the  “little  sanctuary”  prom¬ 
ised  of  God  through  the  prophet  of  individual  right, 
Ezekiel,  and  confirmed  by  the  Founder  of  their  faith, 
even  though  but  two  or  three  might  gather  in  his 
name.  It  was  God,  not  the  Church,  nor  its  edifices, 

90 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 


creeds,  and  ritual,  that  was,  as  they  confessed,  “the 
overflowing  Fountain  of  all  good.” 

So  in  place  of  imposing  interiors,  luxuriant  with 
tracery  and  adornment  that  feasted  the  eye,  they 
met  on  field  and  pasture  to  a  richer  feast  for  the  soul. 
They  heard  the  good  news  of  God  in  their  own 
tongue,  and  they  sang  the  twenty-third,  the  nine¬ 
tieth,  and  other  psalms  with  a  fervor  born  of  their 
own  souls’  experience.  Then,  when  they  were  driven, 
by  pike  and  cannon,  like  sheep  before  the  wolves, 
into  foreign  lands,  or  compelled  to  hide  in  caves  and 
dens  of  the  earth,  there  blossomed  out  of  the  garden 
of  their  souls  rich  flowers  of  thought,  white  lilies  of 
devotion,  and,  in  daily  life,  even  the  more  luxuriant 
fruits  of  the  spirit. 

These  we  see  revealed  in  the  symbolism  of  lan¬ 
guage  and  art.  Less  sensuous,  but  more  appealing  to 
the  spirit,  was  the  new  language  that  spoke  to  the 
eye.  There  was  never  any  divorce  between  Puritan¬ 
ism  and  art,  when  that  art  was  truth.  The  richest 
bloom  of  the  Netherlands  soul,  in  color  and  on  can¬ 
vas,  was  when  the  Republic  and  Calvinism  were  in 
their  highest  power.  Rembrandt  incarnated  the 
truth  of  the  Reformed  Walloon,  Fleming,  and  Dutch 
soul  —  the  sublimation  of  Netherlands  history. 

No  wonder  that  the  chosen  emblem  of  the  perse¬ 
cuted  Walloons  was  “the  lily  among  thorns,”  for  to 
their  purity  of  life  even  enemies  bore  witness.  In  all 
lands  and  ages,  whether  he  be  Hebrew,  Buddhist,  or 
Christian,  the  lustful  and  selfish  man  is  angered  even 

9i 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


to  fury,  by  the  Puritan's  holy  life.  Non-conformity 
is  as  hateful  to  the  sensual  or  to  the  slavish  conform¬ 
ist  as  to  bigot,  skeptic,  or  agnostic.  Neither  liber¬ 
tine  nor  prelate  loves  to  see  the  self-governed  free¬ 
man,  who  rules  his  passions,  appetites,  and  beliefs. 
Even  in  Buddhism  —  the  religion  of  a  fourth  of  the 
human  race  —  the  conception  of  Amida,  the  man 
who,  having  walked  in  the  noble  eightfold  path  of 
virtue,  has  conquered  himself,  is  one  of  the  no¬ 
blest. 

Unchoked  amid  the  thorns  of  sectarian  hatred, 
their  own  animal  lusts,  or  the  giddy  pleasures  of  the 
wanton  and  drunken,  the  white  lily  of  Walloon  faith 
kept  erect  in  heavenly  purity,  ever  looking  up  to 
God.  Yet  outwardly  were  the  thorns,  which  lacer¬ 
ated  and  with  many,  ended  life. 

This  phase  of  the  awful  reality  of  persecution, 
which  hounded  thousands  to  death,  or,  under  allure¬ 
ment,  perverted  the  weak  and  discouraged,  was 
shadowed  forth  in  their  name  as  expressed  in  more 
than  one  petition  to  their  rulers  for  tolerance  — 
“The  Churches  of  the  Netherlands  sitting  (or  wait¬ 
ing)  under  the  cross,”  or,  in  brief,  “The  Church 
under  the  Cross.” 

Even  more  personal  for  the  individual,  as  well  as 
showing  constant  dependence  upon  the  Holy  Spirit, 
was  the  symbol,  wrought  in  gold,  and  worn  on  the 
breast,  or  often  hung  between  the  heart  and  the  ar¬ 
mor.  It  represented  the  celestial  Dove,  emblem  of 
the  descent  of  the  Spirit,  as  seen  of  John  at  the  bap- 

92 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 

tism  of  Jesus.  This,  the  cross  of  Languedoc,  in  time 
became  the  special  badge  of  the  Huguenots.  In  their 
modern  societies,  their  descendants  keep  alive,  in 
grateful  appreciation,  the  stirring  memories  of  the 
past  and  cherish  this  symbol  as  a  memorial  of  the 
martyrs.  For  even  in  our  land,  against  any  corpora¬ 
tion  that  would  again  unite  Church  and  State,  and 
those  enemies  of  religion  who  would  break  down  all 
rule,  order,  boundaries,  and  safeguards,  the  citizen 
must  ever  be  on  his  guard.  “Eternal  vigilance  is  the 
price  of  liberty.” 

The  scattered  groups  of  French-speaking  Chris¬ 
tians,  especially  in  southern  Belgic  Land,  were  shep¬ 
herded  by  two  great  organizers  and  preachers.  One 
of  these  was  Peregrine  la  Grange,  who  galloped  on 
horseback  to  the  great  crowds  in  the  fields,  some¬ 
times  numbering  twenty  thousand,  and  signaling 
the  commencement  of  divine  service  by  firing  a  pis¬ 
tol  in  the  air.  This  soldier  of  the  cross,  whose  Chris¬ 
tian  name  meant  Pilgrim,  was  the  Belgic  Great 
Heart  in  undaunted  courage  and  tireless  energy. 
The  other  was  Guido  de  Bray,  who  was  more  of  a 
teacher.  He  not  only  roused  the  conscience  and  emo¬ 
tions  of  his  audience,  but  he  strengthened  his  follow¬ 
ers  to  endure,  by  being  able  to  give  to  every  man 
a  reason  for  the  hope  within  him.  Both  became 
martyrs. 

The  first  synods  of  the  Walloon  churches  were 
held  secretly  April  26,  July  24,  and  October  5,  at 
Antwerp,  in  1573. 


93 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


What  the  dangers  of  the  environment  were  is  best 
typified  in  the  well-known  picture  of  a  real  event, 
painted  by  a  modern  Belgian  artist.  In  Antwerp, 
Franciscus  Junius,  afterwards  professor  in  Leyden, 
preached  to  his  flock  in  a  room  on  the  walls  of  which 
flickered  the  reflection  of  martyr  fires  in  the  square 
below.  Out  doors,  the  Spanish  Pilate  and  Caiaphas 
worked  together  in  planting  the  cross,  and  according 
to  the  religion  “established  by  law  ”  men  were  burn¬ 
ing  Christians,  their  fellow  believers,  alive. 

In  the  honor  and  shame  of  martyrdom  the  gay 
city  of  Brussels  excelled  even  Antwerp,  and  thence 
a  great  exodus  into  Germany  of  young  monks,  stu¬ 
dents  who  had  heard  of  Luther,  their  fellow  Chris¬ 
tian,  began;  for  these  seekers  after  truth  were  hun¬ 
gry  for  soul  food.  Hence  also  the  barrier  of  fire, 
reared  to  keep  in  the  refugees!  In  the  public  square 
of  Belgium’s  City  Beautiful,  upon  the  two  young 
monks  Esch  and  Voes  was  bestowed  “the  ruby 
crown.”  Luther  immortalized  their  names  in  death¬ 
less  song. 

In  their  chosen  title  itself,  of  “The  Netherlands 
churches  which,  sitting  under  the  cross,  are  scattered 
within  and  without  the  Netherlands,”  is  a  volume  of 
history ;  for  even  the  first  National  Synods  or  general 
gatherings,  in  council  and  for  organization,  were 
held  in  the  lands  of  exile.  At  Wesel,  on  the  Rhine, 
where  then  lived  as  pastor  the  father  of  New  Neth¬ 
erlands  first  governor,  Peter  Minuit,  the  fugitives 
gathered  under  the  protection  of  the  great  Elector, 

94 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 


Frederick  William,  in  1568.  On  the  second  occasion, 
they  met  at  Emden,  in  the  North.  In  this  German 
town,  later  under  the  protection  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public,  the  Dutch  States-General  kept  a  garrison  for 
many  years,  and  there  the  seven-striped  flag,  which 
guaranteed  liberty  of  conscience,  flew  to  the  breeze. 
Even  to-day,  with  its  dikes  and  quaint  buildings 
with  their  gable  ends  to  the  street,  Emden  has  an 
appearance  more  Hollandish  than  German. 

Both  of  these  synods  were  national  or  general,  or 
literally  catholic.  Local  or  provincial  synods  were 
later  held  regularly  in  the  provinces  of  the  northern 
Netherlands,  which,  in  1579,  were  united  in  the  Re¬ 
public.  Those  who  have  read,  in  either  Dutch  or 
English,  the  romance  by  van  Lennep,  entitled  “The 
Abduction,”  will  have  a  lively  sense  of  the  troubles 
of  a  government  in  which  the  federal  principle  was 
no  stronger  than  under  the  American  Articles  of 
Confederation. 

In  1578,  the  grateful  Walloons,  with  eloquent  ora¬ 
tions  and  fitting  ceremonies,  presented  to  the  city  of 
Wesel  two  massive  silver  cups,  decorated  with  the 
figure  of  a  pilgrim,  that  is,  a  Walloon,  in  token  of  the 
hospitality  enjoyed  during  more  than  thirty  years. 
Every  American  should  see  these  memorials  of  grat¬ 
itude. 

In  those  days,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be¬ 
cause  of  the  terrible  brute  passions  concealed  under 
the  garb  of  religion,  any  moderate  man,  who  stood 
between  the  two  fires  and  extremes  and  maintained 

95 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


his  poise,  was  apt  to  be  suspected  and  slandered  by 
both  parties. 

It  was  for  this  reason  that  such  a  great-minded 
patriot  and  Christian  as  William  the  Silent  was  so 
bitterly  assailed  by  both  partisans.  The  Spaniard 
called  him  a  heretic,  set  a  price  on  his  head,  and 
kept  unsleeping  assassins  under  pay  to  murder  him, 
in  which  devilish  enterprise  they  finally  succeeded. 

Yet  hardly  less  bigotedwere  someof  the  ex-monks, 
who  in  turning  their  coats  had  become  fanatical  Cal¬ 
vinists,  who  burned  alive  their  former  brothers  of 
the  cell.  These  denounced  the  Father  of  his  Country 
as  a  traitor  and  a  papist.  Nevertheless,  the  Silent 
One  swerved  not  for  a  moment  in  his  principle  of 
“No  interference  with  conscience  by  the  magis¬ 
trate. n  Besides  William’s  personal  motto,  “Tran¬ 
quil  amid  the  waves,”  there  was  the  necessity  for 
action  laid  on  him  by  the  hereditary  mandate,  “I 
will  maintain.”  In  this  frame  of  mind,  head,  and 
heart  he  lived  and  died.  History  now  knows  him  as 
one  of  the  heroes  of  all  time.  “  He  belongs  to  the 
ages.”  Not  even  English  history,  of  which  we  who 
inherit  its  traditions  are  so  proud,  in  all  its  long 
pageantry,  has  furnished  one  more  worthy  to  be 
called  a  spiritual  ancestor  of  the  United  States, 
than  William  the  Silent. 

Peter  Dathenus,  an  ex-monk,  was  one  of  those 
wonderful  men  about  whom  the  British  encyclopae¬ 
dias  are  silent ;  for,  as  a  rule,  on  topics  of  Netherlands 
world-interest  these  insular  works  of  reference  are 

96 


(From  an  engraving  of  1572) 

The  Netherlands  personified  as  Andromeda;  the  Prince  as  Perseus;  Spain  as  the  dragon.  At  the 

right  are  the  provinces  with  their  coats-of-arms 


\ 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 


disgracefully  defective.  They  ignore  the  men  to 
whom  the  Netherlands  biographical  dictionaries  give 
whole  pages.  Dathenus  knew  French,  Dutch,  and 
German.  He  had  fled  to  the  city  of  Frankfort  —  that 
oasis  of  freedom  in  a  desert  of  persecution,  which 
nourished  so  many  of  the  makers  of  America.  It  was 
then  crowded  with  refugees  for  conscience’  sake  from 
many  lands,  includingsomefromEngland.  Hundreds 
of  these  French-speakingpeopletook  German  names. 
Here  the  future  governor  of  New  York,  Jacob  Leis- 
ler,  was  born,  his  father,  so  tradition  states,  being  a 
Huguenot  pastor. 

Having  sprung  from  the  people,  Dathenus  knew 
their  mother  speech  and  their  moulds  of  thought,  so 
that  he  could  both  speak  and  write,  as  well  as  trans¬ 
late,  in  a  way  that  appealed  to  their  hearts  and  feel¬ 
ings.  So,  besides  translating  the  Heidelberg  Cate¬ 
chism  into  Dutch,  he  put  Marot’s  version  of  the 
psalms  into  the  same  tongue.  These  were  set  to 
lively  tunes  and  soon  the  whole  Netherlands  folk, 
old  and  young,  were  singing  Bible  words.  Though 
a  powerful  preacher,  Dathenus  did  more  by  song 
than  by  sermon ;  for  it  is  ever  true,  as  Herrick  said, 
“A  verse  may  find  him  who  a  sermon  flies.” 

Dathenus  most  probably  presided  at  the  Wesel 
Synod  of  1568,  held  the  year  after  Alva  and  his 
Spaniards  had  invaded  Belgic  Land.  Of  the  fifty- 
three  names  subscribed  on  the  roll  of  attendance, 
that  of  Dathenus  stands  first.  Then  follow  the 
names  of  Henry  Modet,  of  Nyeveldt,  whose  psalms 

97 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


in  verse  were  in  use  in  the  Dutch  church  in  London, 
and  of  Philip  Marnix  de  Aldegonde,  whose  name 
is  immortal  in  the  history  of  the  Republic. 

It  was  decided  at  this  Synod  that  Calvin’s  Geneva 
Catechism  in  French,  should  be  used  by  the  Wal¬ 
loons,  and  the  Heidelberg  Catechism  by  the  German 
churches  in  the  Republic.  In  the  Church  there  were 
to  be  four  orders,  those  of  minister,  teacher,  elder, 
and  deacon.  Many  copies  of  Calvin’s  Catechism,  of 
the  service  book  of  worship,  and  of  French  Bibles 
printed  in  Geneva  were  brought  to  America  by  the 
Walloon  pioneers,  and  some  are  still  to  be  found  in 
the  homes  of  their  descendants.  Marot’s  and  Dath- 
enus’  versions  of  the  psalms  have  been  sung  by  mak¬ 
ers  of  the  United  States  during  several  generations, 
and  still  reecho  in  hundreds  of  churches. 

By  the  time  that  the  first  colony  of  Walloons  was 
ready  in  1624  to  start  for  America,  their  well-estab¬ 
lished  churches  numbered  over  a  hundred,  twenty- 
one  then  being  in  the  Dutch  Republic.  All  of  these 
were  outside  the  southern  or  Spanish  Netherlands, 
though  in  the  hiding  places  of  dens  and  caves  in  the 
home  land  a  few  groups  of  lovers  of  the  Bible  gath¬ 
ered  secretly.  There  were  Walloons  at  Delfshaven 
when  the  Pilgrims  sailed  away,  but  no  known  church 
was  there  of  Huguenot  faith,  until  1686,  or  long  after¬ 
wards. 

In  1619  the  great  National  Synod  was  held  at 
Dordrecht.  At  this  “First  Protestant  Ecumenical 
Council’’  —  in  describing  which  our  Motley  loses 

98 


THE  CHURCH  UNDER  THE  CROSS 


his  judicial  balance  as  a  historian  and  yields  to 
subjective  opinions  and  feelings  —  the  Walloon 
churches  were  well  represented,  and  many  of  their 
ablest  and  most  eloquent  pastors  were  present.  Al¬ 
though  there  were  one  hundred  and  nineteen  dele¬ 
gates  from  various  countries,  English,  French,  Ger¬ 
man,  etc.,  there  was  no  trouble  in  all  being  under¬ 
stood,  during  the  fifty-seven  sessions,  for  Latin  was 
then  the  common  speech  of  all  educated  men .  Among 
those  from  England  was  the  great  Lancelot  Andrewes, 
who  gave  the  literary  gloss  to  that  masterpiece  of 
translation,  the  English  Bible;  that  is,  the  version 
of  1611. 

It  was  a  just  criticism,  made  at  the  time,  that  the 
cast  and  Netherlands  personnel  of  the  Synod  was 
largely  political.  Indeed,  this  Synod  was  called  by 
government  order.  It  was  as  much  to  decide  an  issue 
of  administration,  as  to  settle  a  dogma.  In  short,  it 
was  a  stroke  of  policy  and  a  method  of  propaganda 
for  the  cause  of  federal  union  and  the  initiation  of 
American  colonization,  as  much  as  for  official  ortho¬ 
doxy.  It  was  in  every  land  the  ruling  idea  of  the  age 
to  cover  politics  with  the  cloak  of  religion  —  a  game 
of  practical  politicians  not  yet  wholly  out  of  use.  In 
Motley’s  version  —  which  is  more  of  a  drama  than  a 
history  —  his  comments  on  this  National  Synod  of 
Dort  approach  caricature. 

Carolus  Nellius,  pastor  of  the  Walloon  church  of 
Utrecht,  made  protest,  saying  that  he  could  not  see 
why  the  Walloons  and  Remonstrants  had  not  as 

99 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


much  right  to  dissent  from  this  Dordrecht  Synod,  as 
their  forefathers  had  to  dissent  from  the  Council  of 
Trent.  When  Bogerman,  the  president  of  the  Synod, 
lost  his  temper  and  with  angry  gestures  drove  away 
the  condemned  Arminians,  Nellius  said,  “From  this 
injustice  of  the  Synod  I  appeal  to  the  throne  of 
Christ.”  Even  Prince  Maurice,  the  radical  Unionist 
and  relentless  foe  of  Barneveldt  and  of  secession, 
who  was  the  chief  patron  of  the  colonization  of 
America  and  protector  of  the  Walloon  emigrants, 
was  displeased  at  the  violence  of  Bogerman. 

The  execution  of  Barneveldt,  which  quickly  fol¬ 
lowed,  revealed  the  political  animus  lurking  under 
religious  pretexts.  Much  Prince  Maurice  cared  for 
purity  of  doctrine,  or  for  soundness  in  morals  or  reli¬ 
gion  !  Even  to-day,  while  Barneveldt  has  his  memo¬ 
rial  reared  by  the  nation  —  the  Queen  leading  in 
subscription  —  Maurice  still  awaits  such  an  honor 
by  a  people  who  admired  his  abilities,  while  out¬ 
raged  by  his  private  life. 

In  fact,  throughout  the  whole  history  of  the  Re¬ 
formed  Church  in  the  Netherlands,  the  influence  of 
the  Walloon  Christians  was  irenic  and  ever  in  the 
line  of  moderation. 


CHAPTER  XI 
IN  THE  LANDS  OF  EXILE 

The  story  of  the  flight  of  the  Flemings  and  Wal¬ 
loons  from  the  southern  Netherlands,  following  the 
invasion  by  the  Duke  of  Alva,  with  his  Spanish 
army  of  men  and  women,  who  came  like  locusts  to 
devour,  has  often  been  told.  In  “  Belgium:  The  Land 
of  Art,”  I  have  tried  to  picture  the  scene.  Alva  has 
left  in  Belgium  a  name  of  eternal  detestation.  Even 
during  his  lifetime,  they  tumbled  his  self-reared 
statue  into  the  mire.  After  plentiful  pounding  with 
hammers,  they  cast  it  into  the  flames. 

On  his  approach  in  1567,  which  meant  not  only 
devastation,  but  falsehood,  treachery,  and  brutality 
in  high  office  —  done  in  the  name  of  God  and  the 
holy  centralized  Church  —  depopulation  began. 

Even  critical  authors  vary  as  to  the  census  of  the 
great  dispersion.  Once  more  the  “fleemings,”  or 
Flemings,  fled.  Once  again  those  called  foreigners, 
or  “Walloons,”  became  aliens  in  lands  afar.  The 
continent,  the  near  Britain  and  the  distant  Norse 
isles,  far-off  Russia,  and  the  two  continents  below 
the  equator  received  the  fugitives,  who  refused  to 
sell  their  convictions  or  their  consciences. 

Among  the  very  first  to  give  welcome  and  shelter 
was  England.  The  Dutch  church  at  Austin  Friars 
in  London,  “the  Church  in  the  Crypt”  at  Canter- 


101 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


bury,  and  the  Walloon  church  at  Norwich,  are  the 
oldest  among  the  Reformed  churches  in  England. 
Yet  a  score  or  more  congregations  of  Walloons, 
whether  so-called  or  termed  “  French,  ”  were  gath¬ 
ered  in  the  south  and  east  of  England  long  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Huguenots  of  France,  in  1685  and 
later.  At  Southampton,  Colchester,  and  in  Thread- 
needle  Street  in  London  were  flourishing  Walloon 
churches,  and  in  England  more  than  one  Synod  was 
held.  The  records  of  some  churches  extend  back  to 
1 568,  the  first  year  after  the  great  flight.  The  Acts  of 
Parliament  relating  to  the  Denization  and  Natural¬ 
ization  for  these  aliens  in  England,  from  1509  to 
1603,  form  an  interesting  chapter  in  the  history  of 
civilization. 

Yet  the  number  of  Walloons  who  found  shelter  in 
the  British  Isles  was  but  a  fraction,  compared  with 
that  of  those  who  sought  temporary  or  permanent 
homes  in  the  northern  or  Dutch  Netherlands.  Un¬ 
der  the  Republic’s  flag  of  freedom,  beneath  the  folds 
of  which  they  found  protection,  thousands  of  them 
enlisted  to  serve  and  fight  for  their  new  Fatherland. 
It  was  under  this  flag,  more  numerously  and  oftener 
than  any  other,  that  the  Huguenot  Walloons  fought 
—  thousands  of  them  making  “the  supreme  sacri¬ 
fice,”  in  the  hope  of  winning  for  the  world  and  for 
themselves  a  larger  freedom  and  a  higher  obedience. 

He  misreads  history  who  imagines  that  the  Ref¬ 
ormation  movement  meant  a  struggle  for  liberty 
only.  One  Netherlands  professor  has  even  written  a 


102 


IN  THE  LANDS  OF  EXILE 


monograph  entitled  “Calvinism  or  Libertinism ?” 
Some  writers  still  in  the  mediaeval  obedience  imagine 
that  the  Reformed  Churchmen  sought  only  to  “raise 
discords  in  Church  and  State,”  and  to  cast  off  all 
restraints  and  service,  in  order  to  enjoy  license. 

The  reality  is  at  the  antipodes  of  such  a  notion. 
The  men  who  made  the  Bible  their  sole  guide  and 
authority  sought  freedom,  not  as  the  indolent  slave 
escapes  from  labor,  but  as  men  taught  of  God’s 
Word,  as  they  believed  it,  in  order  to  submit  joy¬ 
fully  to  a  Higher  Master  and  to  take  on  gladly  the 
yoke  of  greater  service.  They  left  a  lower  loyalty 
for  a  higher,  as  all  real  men  do  when  enlightened. 
In  proof  of  this  was  the  universally  acknowledged 
higher  ethical  tenor  of  life  among  the  Huguenots 
and  the  superiority  of  their  economics  and  material 
fruitfulness.  This  was  as  manifest  as  mathematics. 
It  was  demonstrable  in  visible  production,  when 
those  who  prayed  to  saints  and  counted  beads  gave 
but  two  hundred  days  in  the  year  to  work,  while  the 
Huguenots  devoted  three  hundred  days  to  toil  with 
brain  and  hands. 

Thousands  of  Walloons  served  in  the  armies,  first 
of  William  the  Silent  and  then  of  the  Republic,  when 
formed  in  1571.  The  terrible  Sea  Beggars  were 
largely  from  Belgic  Land.  Treslong,  captor  of  Brill, 
the  Lexington  of  the  Dutch  war  of  independence, 
and  Boisot,  the  rescuer  of  Leyden,  were  both  of 
them  Walloons.  At  the  siege  of  Rouen,  by  Henry 
IV,  eight  regiments  were  Walloon ;  while  in  1688,  un- 

103 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


der  William  III,  in  England  and  Ireland,  Huguenots 
made  up  half  his  army.  After  helping  to  defeat  the 
traitor  king  James  II,  many  of  the  veterans  of  Wil¬ 
liam  III  remained  in  Ireland,  introducing  the  crafts 
of  lace-  and  linen-making  and  in  many  ways  im¬ 
proving  Ulster  and  North  Ireland.  Thousands  of  the 
“ Scotch  Irish”  of  to-day  are  descended  from  Belgic 
and  French  Huguenots,  and  bear  their  names,  more 
or  less  altered  to  suit  foreign  ears  and  tongues.  The 
registers  of  the  French  Conformed  Churches  of  St. 
Patrick  and  St.  Mary  in  Dublin  —  two  among  those 
Walloon  churches  that  became  Episcopal  —  were 
published  in  1893. 

Until  the  northern  Netherlanders  had  a  national 
flag,  they  used  the  three  colors  of  the  prince,  orange, 
white,  and  blue;  which,  after  1581,  became  the  na¬ 
tional  emblem,  but  later  by  law  was  made  the  red, 
white,  and  blue.  There  were,  of  course,  the  arms  and 
heraldry  of  cities  blazoned  on  the  flags  which  waved 
in  the  breezes;  for  the  evolution  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public  was  in  the  line  of  unifying  many  city  repub¬ 
lics  into  a  nation.  It  is  true  that,  when  compared 
with  the  federal  system  of  the  United  States  of  the 
twentieth  century,  theirs  was  a  weak  federalism; 
but,  such  as  it  was,  it  served  to  unite  the  seven  north¬ 
ern  provinces.  Nearly  all  our  American  mottoes  and 
war  cries,  such  as,  “No  taxation  without  representa¬ 
tion,”  “E  pluribus  unum,”  “The  Union  must  and 
shall  be  preserved,”  “Union  makes  strength,”  etc., 
were  heard  first  in  the  Netherlands. 


104 


IN  THE  LANDS  OF  EXILE 


The  name  of  “The  Church  under  the  Cross, ” 
thus  chosen,  found  expression  even  when  the  perse¬ 
cuted  Belgians  called  themselves  “Beggars,”  and, 
driven  off  the  land,  took  to  the  sea.  The  first  flag 
raised  by  them  was  white,  with  a  red  cross,  to  signify 
their  homelessness,  desolation,  and  sufferings ;  mean¬ 
while  making  the  sea  very  unsafe  for  Spanish  vessels. 

When  Count  Louis,  brother  of  the  great  William, 
took  up  arms  against  Spain,  six  of  these  flags  were 
presented  to  him.  They  bore  mottoes  in  Latin, 
meaning  “Now  or  never,”  “Regain  or  die.”  After 
1570,  the  Beggars  of  the  Sea,  many  of  whom  were 
Walloons,  flew  the  colors  of  William  and  also  the 
city  flags  of  the  captains.  Yet  the  Netherlanders  had 
their  grim  jokes.  Most  comical,  as  well  as  defiant, 
were  the  broad  red  pennants  flying  from  every  ship. 
On  these  were  painted  ten  pennies.  This  was  in  de¬ 
rision  of  Alva’s  tax  of  the  tenth  penny,  laid  on  all 
business  transactions,  from  which  the  Beggars  were 
determined  to  deliver  their  countrymen. 

When  Leyden,  then  full  of  Walloons,  was  in  course 
of  being  relieved,  the  people  not  only  raised  flags  on 
the  walls,  but  fastened  these  bits  of  bunting  to  the 
highest  points  of  the  windmills,  in  defiance  of  the 
Spaniards  and  in  faith  of  ultimate  victory.  This 
cheered  the  Walloon  leader,  Admiral  Louis  de  Boisot, 
of  the  oncoming  cannon  boats,  manned  by  Zeeland- 
ers  and  Walloons  who  were  the  rescuers.  These  des¬ 
perate  fellows,  every  one  of  whom  wore  the  silver 
crescent,  inscribed  “Better  Turk  than  Pope”  (or 

105 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Papist),  read  the  signal,  “Leyden  still  holds  out.” 
They  pushed  their  boats  on  through  the  flood  that  had 
poured  through  the  broken  dikes,  and  they  finally 
won.  The  place  where  they  stepped  out  of  their 
boats,  to  throw  up  loaves  and  herring  to  the  starving 
Leydeners,  on  October  3,  1574,  is  still  marked;  and 
near  the  sluice  and  bridge  stands  the  House  of  Ar¬ 
chives,  in  which  are  so  many  documents  relating  to 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  founders  of  Massachusetts,  and 
to  the  Walloons,  founders  of  New  York  and  the 
Middle  States.  These,  in  the  total,  outnumber  all 
others  elsewhere  which  are  dated  before  1620. 

In  the  Dutch  Republic  was  the  original  home  of 
the  “flag,”  as  Americans  understand  the  word  and 
its  association  of  ideas.  Not  only  the  name  itself, 
but  almost  the  entire  vocabulary  in  English,  is  de¬ 
rived  from  the  Dutch.  The  abundant  words  in  other 
languages  are  as  reflectors  casting  light  upon  this  as¬ 
sertion.  In  their  structure,  use,  and  true  meaning 
they  show  that  the  ideas  underlying  these  symbols  of 
feudal  and  royal  rule,  instead  of  nationality,  were 
different  from  those  that  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the 
national  naval  flag  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  which 
consisted  of  seven  parallel  red  and  white  stripes.  Al¬ 
most  for  the  first  time  in  history,  this  emblem  of  sov¬ 
ereignty  stood,  not  for  kings,  emperors,  individuals, 
or  local  rulers,  or  even  for  provincial  or  municipal 
entities  or  persons,  but  for  states. 

In  a  word,  the  idea  of  the  Dutch  flag  was  federal, 
not  feudal.  It  meant  equality  and  unity  of  the  prov- 

106 


IN  THE  LANDS  OF  EXILE 


inces,  that  were  federated  out  of  seven  states  partic¬ 
ular  into  the  one  States-General,  or  the  republic 
formed  in  1579  and  declared  independent  in  1581. 
“Staff/’  “bunt,”  “bunting,”  “fly,”  “halyards,” 
“stripe,”  “held”  (not  canton)  are  all  Dutch. 
“Stripe,”  signifying  a  band  of  color,  was  not  in  the 
English  language  before  the  word  having  this  signif¬ 
ication  was  borrowed  from  the  Dutch.  That  is  the 
reason  why,  in  the  English  Bible,  Joseph’s  coat  of 
many  “stripes,”  and  the  Princess  Tamar’s  “striped” 
skirt,  of  which  the  Hebrew  tells  us,  are  rendered  by 
the  term  “colors ”  —  which  does  not  fill  out  the  idea 
of  Israel’s  narrators.  The  wimples,  pennants,  dra- 
peaux,  pavilions,  ensigns,  banners,  colors,  etc.,  etc., 
of  feudal  or  royal  captains,  or  men-at-arms,  were  not 
true  flags,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  certainly 
not  in  that  of  the  Dutch  naval  flag,  or  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Stars  and  Stripes  —  ideas  and  symbols  which  to¬ 
day  have  been  copied  by  scores  of  states  and  nations. 

We  may  well  ask  how  these  people,  the  ancestors 
of  so  many  of  us,  felt  when  torn  from  their  homes 
and  ancestral  surroundings  and  they  found  them¬ 
selves  aliens  in  foreign  lands. 

Does  a  prisoner  think  of  freedom,  or  an  exile  of 
home?  Long  before  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  arrived, 
Leyden  was  a  shelter  for  many  homesick  souls  from 
Plainault,  Namur,  and  the  southern  Belgic  provinces. 
Stripped  and  impoverished,  those  of  both  the  first 
and  later  generation,  fugitives  from  the  Spanish  ter¬ 
ror,  were  thankful  for  the  welcome  accorded  them 

107 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  the  free  opportunities  offered  for  “life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.”  Yet  they  hoped  on 
and  hoped  ever  to  return  to  their  old  cities  and  vil¬ 
lages.  Like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  Mothers,  they 
suffered  the  same  pangs  of  homesickness.  With  them 
were  the  same  heartaches,  in  yearning,  for  years,  to 
see  once  again  the  land  they  loved.  The  woes  of  the 
English  exiles,  as  told  by  Bradford,  have  become  a 
world-story.  Written  as  a  prose  epic,  in  a  classic 
book  and  oft  recounted,  they  are  known  to  all;  but 
the  sorrows  and  privations  of  the  first  founders  of 
our  Middle  States  were  none  the  less  real,  while 
vastly  greater  in  both  numbers  and  length  of  time. 

A  second  swarming  from  the  old  hive  —  rather 
the  pushing  out  of  the  nest  by  new  masters  —  took 
place  under  Louis  XIV,  even  of  the  Walloons,  from 
soil  that  was  then  French,  but  of  old  Belgic,  after 
the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  These  fled 
again,  with  the  French  Huguenots,  into  England, 
Germany,  Denmark,  Russia,  the  West  Indies,  South 
Africa,  and  South  America,  and  the  Old  House  of 
Hospitality,  the  Dutch  Republic.  Yet  one  and  all 
cherished  during  their  lifetime  the  dream  of  again 
regaining  the  home  of  their  fathers.  They  ever 
trusted  that  the  Great  Powers  would  intervene  in 
their  behalf  and  restore  to  them  their  farms  and 
cities. 

When  in  1697  the  diplomatists  gathered  around 
the  green  baize  table  at  Ryswick  —  now  a  railway 
station  in  South  Holland,  between  Delft  and  The 

108 


IN  THE  LANDS  OF  EXILE 


Hague  —  to  settle  terms  of  peace  after  war,  the  Hu¬ 
guenots  sent  piteous  petitions,  but  they  were  ignored. 
To-day  on  the  spot  where  stood  the  House  of  Disap¬ 
pointment,  no  trace  is  visible  of  either  the  business 
which  made  truce,  rather  than  peace,  or  of  the  sor¬ 
row  of  those  who  died  in  despair. 

Again  at  Utrecht,  in  1713,  the  petitioners  for 
home,  freedom,  justice,  and  the  rights  of  conscience 
appeared,  only  to  be  ignored  or  shown  the  door.  The 
British  masters  of  statecraft  were  then  more  eager  ap¬ 
parently  to  win  gold  and  prestige  from  the  African 
slave  trade,  and  to  outwit  Spaniards  in  man-steal¬ 
ing,  than  to  help  poor  white  refugees.  What  seem  to 
us  the  almost  idiotic  wars  of  “the  Spanish  Succes¬ 
sion,’  ’  were  made  to  cease;  but  British  covetousness 
was  confirmed  in  its  “  rights  ”(?).  The  traders,  who 
were  then  dominant  in  Parliament,  were  guaranteed 
the  virtual  monopoly  of  the  capture  and  sale  of  hu¬ 
man  beings.  Queen  Anne,  however,  by  her  personal 
intervention,  secured  the  release  from  the  French 
galleys  of  several  score  slaves  who  had  held  to  their 
faith.  One  of  these  wrote  the  “Confessions  of  a 
Protestant.” 

Happily  in  later  time,  the  British  national  con¬ 
science  was  aroused  against  this  iniquity.  Then  the 
ethically  belated  Americans  became  the  target  of 
protest  and  contempt  by  the  English,  because  of 
the  “peculiar  institution”  of  slavery  continued  on 
Southern  soil,  when  cotton  culture  demanded  an 
ever  enlarging  area. 

109 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  WALLOONS  ENRICH  SWEDEN 


Not  least  among  the  countries  that  have  sent  their 
sons  and  daughters  to  build  up  the  American  Com¬ 
monwealth  is  the  land  of  Gustavus  Adolphus.  The 
Swedes  began  a  colony  on  the  Delaware  in  1655.  In 
their  more  recent  and  vastly  larger  contingent  of  im¬ 
migrants,  who  have  helped  to  settle  the  great  North- 
•  west,  their  record  of  illiteracy  is  the  smallest  among 
those  who  seek  America. 

Besides  their  intelligence,  the  Swedes  as  a  whole 
quickly  become  very  good  Americans.  Never  great 
psychologists,  or  students  of  mental  science,  they 
have  excelled  in  the  study  of  nature,  and  no  na¬ 
tion  has  surpassed  them  in  the  number,  proportion¬ 
ately,  of  masters  in  the  domain  of  science  and  me¬ 
chanics.  Even  their  folk  songs  praise  the  beauty  of 
nature.  They  seldom  deal  with  the  varied  passions 
and  records  of  humanity,  its  glories  and  its  foi¬ 
bles.  This  trait  is  discernible  even  in  their  names. 
Whereas  the  English  took  theirs  from  trades  and 
occupations,  and  the  Dutch  from  places,  those  of 
Sweden  reflect,  in  their  form,  the  mountains, 
streams,  trees,  and  flowers  of  their  native  land. 

Before  the  Spanish  invasion  of  1567,  even  as  early 
as  1560,  Walloons  had  come  into  Sweden  by  invita¬ 
tion  of  Gustavus  Wasa,  to  help  in  shipbuilding  and 


no 


THE  WALLOONS  ENRICH  SWEDEN 


other  industries.  One  became  the  private  tutor  of 
the  young  prince  Eric  XIV.  In  fact,  it  was  mainly 
through  these  Belgic  Walloons  that  the  princes  and 
rulers  of  Sweden  became  so  deeply  interested  in  the 
“  Reformed”  religion.  Charles  IX, who  died  in  1612, 
the  father  of  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus,  was  es¬ 
pecially  earnest  in  his  inquiries  and  studies  of  the 
Calvinistic  side  of  the  Reformation.  In  time,  many 
of  these  Walloons  wrote  their  names  as  Waller  — 
whence  hundreds  of  families  in  English-speaking 
countries. 

We  need  not  then  be  surprised  that  the  Walloon, 
besides  being  teacher,  soldier,  shipbuilder,  unceas¬ 
ing  in  his  industry,  showed  himself,  when  in  Sweden, 
a  wonder-worker  in  metals.  In  fact  he  created  a 
new  art  in  the  mastery  of  iron. 

Not  only  did  the  Walloons  “improve  the  iron  in¬ 
dustry,”  but  they  are  looked  upon  as  the  founders  of 
the  whole  system  of  metallurgy ;  since,  before  their 
coming,  the  art  of  refining  iron  and  other  metals  had 
scarcely  begun.  Among  their  ten  thousand  descend¬ 
ants  in  the  Sweden  of  our  day  is  the  ennobled  fam¬ 
ily  of  de  Geer.  In  the  royal  patent  granted  to  the 
founder,  it  is  expressly  stated  that  “he  had  intro¬ 
duced  the  art  of  casting  iron  cannon  [when  formerly 
only  brass  had  been  used],  of  making  bars  of  malle¬ 
able  iron,  of  manufacturing  all  kinds  of  arms,  of 
building  at  great  expense  many  factories  for  brass 
and  iron  work,  and  that  he  imported  many  skilled 
workmen  and  taught  our  inhabitants  [Swedes]  the 

hi 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


secrets  of  the  iron  industry.”  Even  the  popular  his¬ 
tories  tell  of  this  economic  re-creation  of  Sweden  by 
a  Walloon. 

The  story  of  how  all  this  came  about  reads  like  a 
romance.  Ten  years  after  Alva’s  invasion  of  Belgic 
Land,  and  when  under  a  Spanish  king  and  priestcraft 
life  to  the  Christians  of  the  Reformed  faith  had  be¬ 
come  hardly  worth  living,  Louis  de  Geer,  of  Brabant, 
became  a  refugee.  He  sold  his  possessions  and  sent 
the  money  to  Amsterdam.  Then,  traveling  secretly 
with  his  wife,  eight  children,  and  a  loyal  servant,  he 
was  able  to  reach  Maastricht,  the  last  station  within 
the  then  Spanish  Netherlands.  There  he  rented  a 
river  boat,  used  to  freight  peat  down  the  Maas 
(Meuse)  River  to  Holland.  In  the  boat,  back  of  the 
black  bricks  of  this  vegetable  fuel,  he  arranged  a 
little  compartment  for  his  family.  It  was  so  com¬ 
pletely  hidden  from  the  inspectors  on  the  frontier 
that  he  got  safely  across  the  border  into  the  Dutch 
Republic.  Stepping  on  land,  they  all,  father, 
mother,  children,  and  servant,  fell  on  their  knees  and 
in  the  new  Fatherland  devoutly  thanked  God  for 
their  escape  and  their  freedom.  In  Amsterdam,  de 
Geer  started  a  bank,  organized  a  business  house,  and 
made  a  fortune.  To  his  estate  and  to  the  headship  of 
the  house,  the  son  Louiis  (1587-1662)  succeeded  and 
in  1617  negotiated  a  large  loan  to  finance  the  wars  of 
Gustavus  Adolphus. 

Walloons  had  previously  reached  Sweden,  and  a 
relative,  named  de  Besche,  called  the  attention  of  de 


112 


THE  WALLOONS  ENRICH  SWEDEN 

Geer  to  the  industrial  opportunity  in  Sweden,  where 
skilled  labor  and  educated  engineers  were  lacking 
for  the  iron  mines.  Seizing  the  opportunity,  Louis 
went  to  Sweden  in  1627  and  there  made  large  invest¬ 
ments.  The  Government  gave  to  de  Geer  the  plant 
at  Finspong,  which  had  thus  far  yielded  little;  but 
under  de  Geer’s  management  it  became  more  profit¬ 
able  than  most  gold  mines. 

Into  Sweden  de  Geer  brought  hundreds  of  skilled 
Walloon  miners  and  metal-workers  —  an  enterprise 
which  the  Government  gladly  encouraged.  Several 
of  his  children  settled  permanently  in  the  kingdom 
and  were  ennobled  as  barons,  as  was  also  de  Besche. 
Not  only  were  the  de  Geers  of  Sweden  a  family 
highly  respected  —  hundreds  in  time  bearing  the 
name  —  but  from  them  arose  many  scientific  men, 
famous  for  their  attainments.  The  recently  pub¬ 
lished  book  on  the  ancestry  of  the  de  Geers  shows,  in 
sumptuous  form,  Sweden’s  great  debt  to  these  men. 

In  the  mining  and  iron  industry  of  our  day,  names 
of  manifestly  Walloon  or  French  origin  are  common 
in  the  directories.  This  seems  to  show  that,  in  Swe¬ 
den,  it  was  not  at  first  so  common  a  custom  among 
the  refugees  to  change  their  patronyms,  as  in  other 
lands  of  asylum,  and  only  recently  a  popular  book 
has  been  published  in  Sweden  which  gives  more 
details,  as  follows: 

Walloons  came  from  Belgium  during  the  seventeenth 
century,  to  improve  the  Swedish  iron  industry.  They 
settled  near  the  great  iron  works  in  East  Gothaland,  Up- 

113 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


land,  Varmland,  and  Bergslagen.  They  are  represented 
mostly  by  a  dark  type  [as  compared  with  the  florid 
blondes],  are  for  the  most  part  of  short  stature,  thickset 
growth,  and  have  broad  faces.  They  have  intermarried 
among  themselves  and  partly  with  Swedes,  and  owing  to 
this  a  great  many  types  have  arisen.  The  descendants  of 
these  Walloons  have  now  spread  themselves  over  the 
whole  country. 

At  first,  besides  having  their  own  ministry,  teach¬ 
ers,  and  physicians,  they  did  not  marry  with  the 
native  Swedes.  It  was  nearly  a  century  before  they 
ceased  to  be  “  a  peculiar  people.”  In  modern  Sweden, 
nearly  four  hundred  names  of  Walloon  origin,  some  of 
them  quite  common  in  America,  have  been  traced  out. 

What  is  true  of  the  Swedish  is  equally  so  of  the 
American  composite.  “The  melting  pot”  reveals  a 
similar  ingot.  Those  who  have  lived  in  the  six  East¬ 
ern  States,  still  spoken  of  as  “New  England,”  might 
in  like  manner  describe  the  very  varied  physiog¬ 
nomy  of  American  citizens,  in  that  section  of  the 
United  States,  who  are  descended  from  ancestors 
who  began  at  Plymouth  to  mingle  Walloon  and 
French  blood  with  the  English,  Welsh,  Scotch,  and 
Dutch  strains.  These  were  efficient  in  land  east 
of  the  Hudson,  from  1620  to  1776,  in  altering  the 
legendary,  but  very  much  mixed  “Anglo-Saxon”;  or 
rather  the  inherited  Celto-Norse-Frisian-Teutonic 
type  of  face  and  form  in  the  British  Isles.  Certainly 
the  swarthy,  brunette  coloring  of  the  Walloon  is 
easily  discernible  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States. 

Such,  at  least,  is  the  impression  of  one  who  has 

114 


THE  WALLOONS  ENRICH  SWEDEN 


studied  the  origins  and  influences  operating  in  the 
six  Eastern  States,  and  who,  in  addition  to  seven 
years  of  residence  in  Boston,  in  which  are  all  of  the 
rural  and  urban  types,  visited  leisurely  the  regions 
from  Eastport  to  Greenwich,  and  from  the  Canadian 
border  to  Long  Island  Sound. 

One  recent  Swedish  writer  has  described  the  Wal¬ 
loons  in  Sweden  as  having  in  most  cases  dark  com¬ 
plexion  and  brown  eyes.  They  are  open  and  free  in 
conversation,  keen  in  judgment,  and  apt  to  learn. 
They  are  very  touchy  in  disposition,  and  often  ap¬ 
pear  a  little  bit  stiff  and  formal  in  manner.  They 
dress  well  and  keep  their  houses  scrupulously  clean. 
They  are  very  high-minded  and  stand  above  most 
people  in  cultural  tact.1 

In  his  book  “The  Cradle  of  Pennsyl vania,’ ’  Mr. 
T.  W.  Balch  has  awarded  to  the  Swedes  the  honor  of 
first  establishing  homes  in  the  Keystone  State.  Be¬ 
fore  these,  however,  were  the  four  Walloon  brides 
and  their  husbands,  married  on  the  colonizing  ship 
New  Netherland,  in  1624.  They  first  saw  the  future 
site  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  and  their  homes  were 
on  an  island  in  the  Delaware  River,  probably  near 
Trenton.  They  later  lived  on  the  soil  of  Delaware  — 
which  owes  its  primal  existence  as  a  colony  and  its 
sovereignty  as  a  state  to  the  Dutch  discovery,  claim, 
settlement,  and  occupation. 

Nevertheless,  to  the  Swedes  we  must  award  the 
honors  of  inaugurating  the  commonwealth  named 
1  E.  Hartman,  in  Nordisk  Familjebok . 

115 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


after  William  Penn.  The  proofs  of  their  life  and 
work  on  the  soil  are  still  in  notable  evidence  to  any 
one  who,  like  the  writer,  has  lived  on  ground  which 
they  occupied  within  the  southern  limits  of  the 
Quaker  city.  On  February  6,  1909,  in  the  presence 
of  the  municipal  dignitaries  and  the  representatives 
of  historical  and  patriotic  societies,  American  and 
Swedish,  a  superb  bronze  tablet,  presented  by  the 
Society  of  Colonial  Wars,  was  unveiled  at  the  City 
Hall  in  Philadelphia. 

No  plan  for  colonizing  America  was  conceived  in 
nobler  thought,  or  dedicated  to  a  higher  proposition 
than  this  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  his  chancellor 
Oxenstierna  —  both  among  the  great  men  of  all  time. 
In  the  height  of  his  victories,  in  northern  Germany, 
over  the  armies  of  absolutism  in  Church  and  State, 
this  great-minded  ruler,  at  Nuremberg,  in  1632, 
drew  up  a  recommendation  of  this  colony  as  “the 
jewel  of  his  kingdom.”  Oxenstierna,  looking  even 
further  into  the  future,  declared  that  the  results  of 
the  colonization  of  America  by  men  of  the  North 
would  be  “favorable  to  all  Christendom,  to  Europe, 
and  to  the  whole  world.” 

Death  on  the  field  of  battle  arrested  the  project 
for  a  time,  for  the  successor  of  Charles  being  Chris¬ 
tina  his  daughter,  then  but  six  years  old,  the  enter¬ 
prise  was  postponed.  Her  name,  in  slightly  altered 
form,  is  to-day  borne,  not  only  by  the  town  on 
the  Delaware,  Christiana,  but  by  a  half  dozen  other 
places  in  the  United  States. 

116 


THE  WALLOONS  ENRICH  SWEDEN 


Fitly  the  Swedes,  who  during  the  nineteenth 
century  so  largely  helped  to  people  the  old  North¬ 
western  States,  have  proposed  to  celebrate  in  1923, 
with  a  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  in  a  ship  of  an¬ 
cient  model,  the  first  sailing  of  their  countrymen  to 
America. 

Here  we  may  ask:  What  was  the  secret  of  the  rela¬ 
tive  industrial  superiority,  greater  general  prosper¬ 
ity,  and  continuing  economic  power  of  the  Walloons 
and  the  Huguenots?  Uprooted  from  their  homes, 
and  compelled  to  live  in  strange  lands,  with  the  dis¬ 
advantages  of  climate  and  soil,  why  were  such  tri¬ 
umphs  in  civilization  wrought  by  them  in  both 
Europe  and  America? 

Two  factors  from  the  first  were  potent  to  make 
fresh  contributions  to  civilization  and  human  prog¬ 
ress. 

The  first  was  the  joyousness  of  the  new  form  of 
religion,  which  in  itself  was  but  a  renewal  of  that 
which,  in  the  morning  of  Christianity,  made  the 
faces  even  of  slaves  to  shine,  filled  souls  with  light 
and  brought  new  raptures,  making  life  vastly  more 
worth  living  than  ever  before.  This  joy  was  in 
itself  creative. 

It  is  not  merely  steam,  electricity,  and  commerce 
that  have  made  a  new  industrial  world,  but  a  new 
kind  of  man,  who  was  ever  passing  on  the  torch  to 
higher  achievements.  None  illustrated  this  truth 
more  than  those  Walloons  who,  exiled  for  conscience’ 
sake,  went  forth,  not  weeping,  or  sitting  idly  at  the 

117 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


fountains  of  the  past,  but  with  creative  joy  in  their 
eyes,  to  new  visions  and  to  new  achievements. 

In  fact  very  much  the  same  story  of  the  creative 
industry  of  the  Walloons  in  the  British  Isles,  Ger¬ 
many,  the  northern  Netherlands,  Sweden,  South 
Africa,  and  the  West  Indies,  might  be  told  of  their 
fellow  believers  everywhere.  In  Denmark,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  in  Copenhagen  and  at  Fredericia,  the  still  ex¬ 
isting  Reformed  churches  of  these  places  give  honor 
in  their  histories  to  “the  Walloon  period.”  In  Swit¬ 
zerland,  both  the  voluntary  refugees  and  the  exiles 
forced  out  of  the  Belgic  Netherlands,  under  Alva  and 
Parma,  finding  creed,  church  order,  and  language 
already  like  their  own,  promptly  united  themselves 
with  the  Reformed  congregations.  Thus  the  Swiss 
churches  were  notably  reinforced.  In  the  great  mural 
monument  of  the  Reformation,  several  rods  long, 
recently  erected  in  Geneva,  on  part  of  what  was  the 
old  city  wall,  but  newly  faced  with  stone  suitable  for 
sculpture  in  bas-relief,  one  may  read  the  pictorial  his¬ 
tory  of  the  Reformation,  particularly  as  shaped  by 
John  Calvin.  Here  the  Swiss,  the  English,  the  Amer¬ 
ican,  the  Dutch,  German,  and  other  ethnic  phases  of 
the  recovery  of  the  history  of  New  Testament  Chris¬ 
tianity  have  been  worthily  told  by  the  chisel  of  the 
sculptor  and  the  pen  of  the  historian. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  FLOATING  PURGATORY  ' 

The  life  of  all  animate  beings,  including  man,  is  one 
of  hope  and  fear. 

For  centuries  in  the  litanies  of  Christendom  arose 
this  petition:  “From  the  fury  of  the  Norsemen, 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us.’'  Such  a  prayer  was  for  de¬ 
liverance  from  pagan  savages,  worshipers  of  idols, 
believers  in  gods  that  were  but  magnified  men,  with 
the  exaggerated  passions  of  the  lair  and  the  jungle. 

From  the  era  of  “the  wars  of  religion”  so-called, 
the  prayers  of  those  who  lived  in  fear  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  and  the  French  galleys  were  put  up  in 
terror  of  Christians  so-called.  To  them  “the  King’s 
religion”  meant  a  suppression  of  all  that  made  life 
desirable. 

In  America,  it  was  the  dread  of  being  “chained  to 
the  oar”  in  the  galleys  of  slavery  and  in  a  floating 
hell,  ordained  by  His  Most  Christian  Majesty,  Louis 
XIV,  that  made  Jacob  Leisler,  the  sleepless  enemy 
of  this  royal  slave  driver,  so  popular  in  New  York. 
It  was  the  strong  probability  of  consignment  to  a  liv¬ 
ing  death  in  the  galleys  that  struck  terror  to  the  Wal¬ 
loons  and  Huguenots  on  Manhattan,  Staten  and 
Long  Islands,  and  in  Schenectady,  New  Paltz,  New 
Rochelle,  and  other  settlements,  and  made  them,  in 

119 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


overwhelming  majority,  welcome  Leisler  as  a  cham¬ 
pion. 

The  galley  was  a  type  of  ship  efficient  and  valued, 
especially  in  the  Mediterranean,  from  very  ancient 
days.  It  was  in  use  also  in  the  English  Channel  and 
4 ‘the  narrow  seas,”  down  to  the  middle  of  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century.  Then,  along  with  the  “fire  ship,”  it 
vanished  from  naval  warfare.  From  one  to  two 
hundred  feet  long  and  from  thirty  to  sixty  feet  wide, 
propelled  by  oars,  it  could  be  used  as  a  ram,  as  a 
floating  battery,  or  to  run  aside  and  board  an  en¬ 
emy’s  ship.  A  galley  was  of  slight  use  out  on  the 
ocean,  but  for  coast  defense  and  the  “narrow”  seas, 
it  was  formidable,  either  for  menace  and  the  alarm 
of  coasts,  or  for  the  crash  of  action.  When  can¬ 
non  were  invented  and  mounted  on  the  forward 
deck,  the  power  and  efficiency  of  the  galley  were  not 
to  be  despised. 

Inside  and  below,  chained  by  the  leg  to  the  hard 
seats,  the  rowers  sat,  six  in  a  line,  working  the  oars. 
These  were  fifty  feet  long,  poised  on  a  pivot,  thirty- 
seven  feet  of  their  length  being  outside  and  thirteen 
feet  within  the  ship.  The  slaves,  kept  in  rhythmic 
toil,  were  directed  by  the  officer’s  whistle.  The  knot¬ 
ted  lash  was  always  ready  for  welts  and  blood,  but 
even  without  that  instrument  of  torture,  men  often 
collapsed  and  died  at  their  task.  After  each  scourg¬ 
ing,  the  stripes  and  bloody  flesh,  opened  by  the 
rope’s  end,  were  washed  with  salt  and  vinegar.  This 
caused  excruciating  agony,  but  it  tended  to  speedier 


120 


From  an  old  French  Print 


THE  FLOATING  PURGATORY 


healing.  The  corpses  were  at  once  flung  into  the  sea. 
The  average  life  of  a  rower  was  ten  years.  The  doc¬ 
umentary  history  and  the  literature  and  narratives 
of  those  who  suffered  in  the  galleys  show  that  the 
conditions  and  horrors  under  the  system  were  not 
radically  different  from  those  of  the  Middle  Passage 
in  the  African  slave  trade. 

The  slaves,  Christian  and  Mahometan,  in  the 
rowing  crews,  were  of  a  very  miscellaneous  descrip¬ 
tion.  Many  were  Turks  captured  by  the  Levantine 
corsairs,  sold  in  the  slave  markets  of  Italy  and 
bought  by  the  French. 

Beside  these  foreigners,  were  those  native  French 
criminals  condemned  in  the  courts  under  His  Most 
Christian  Majesty,  by  the  Inquisitors,  and  by  the 
civil  and  military  magistrates,  for  their  crimes. 
Their  punishment  in  hard  labor  in  the  galleys 
was  often  worse  than  death.  All  the  galley  slaves 
bore  the  marks  of  their  degradation,  being  clothed 
in  red  and  branded  on  their  flesh  with  the  letters 
GAL. 

But  in  the  purview  of  “the  King’s  religion”  and 
the  kind  of  a  France  and  French  law  that  existed  be¬ 
fore  the  Revolution  of  1789,  the  term  “galerien” 
was  given  to  all  convicts.  Until  this  era  had  passed, 
a  man  who  exercised  his  own  conscience  in  worship 
was  deemed  worse  than  a  thief  or  murderer.  So 
there  were  condemned  to  the  galleys  nobles,  gentle¬ 
men,  scholars,  and  other  Christians  of  the  Reformed 
Church,  innocent  of  all  evil  —  except  what  was  pre- 

121 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


scribed  by  the  corporation  in  Italy  and  reinforced  in 
France. 

It  was  by  the  French  people  themselves,  that  the 
hated  name,  with  all  that  it  signified,  was  changed  to 
“format”  (convict).  In  the  Land  of  the  Bull  Fights, 
the  term  “galera”  is  still  used  for  a  criminal  con¬ 
demned  to  penal  servitude. 

Through  the  intercession  of  Queen  Anne  of  Eng¬ 
land,  the  French  author  of  the  book  “Memoirs  of  a 
Protestant,”  by  Jean  Marteilles,  regained  his  free¬ 
dom.  His  book,  translated  by  Oliver  Goldsmith, 
was  published,  first  in  Holland,  in  1757,  and  later  in 
England.  By  this  and  other  writings,  the  horrors  of 
the  galley  slave  system  were  made  known  to  the 
world  in  vivid  and  realistic  presentation.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  after  the  French  Revolution,  the  realities  of 
this  relic  of  savagery  had  been  so  far  forgotten  that  it 
was  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  even  one  copy  of  the 
books  describing  it,  so  thoroughly  had  the  work  of 
this  sort  of  protestantism  against  prelatical  autoc¬ 
racy  been  done.  Although  the  phrase  “chained  to 
the  oar,”  became  a  common  expression  in  rhetoric, 
few  of  those  who  in  a  later  time  used  it  thought  of 
any  but  of  Roman  history,  and  as  a  matter  wholly 
ancient.  Yet  to-day,  as  we  read  the  list  of  the 
French  galley  slaves  known  to  the  author  of  “  Mem¬ 
oirs  of  a  Protestant,”  we  recognize  them  as  the  same 
as  those  borne  by  American  families  among  us  and 
common  in  the  city  directories.  Another  book,  writ¬ 
ten  by  Jean  F.  Bion,  issued  in  London  in  1708,  re- 


122 


THE  FLOATING  PURGATORY 


counted  “the  Torments  which  the  French  endure, 
aboard  the  galleys.” 

Within  the  past  decade,  a  correspondent  and  fel¬ 
low  researcher  in  the  Dutch  archives  found  a  list  of 
slaves  in  the  French  galleys,  the  highest  number 
passing  thirty-nine  thousand. 

In  colonial  America,  these  dangers  of  being  sent  to 
the  floating  purgatory  established  by  “the  King’s  re¬ 
ligion,”  had  as  real  an  existence  as  the  war  whoop  of 
the  Algonquin,  the  cry  of  the  panther,  or  the  rattle 
of  the  venomous  snake.  We  may  smile  now  at  such 
fears,  for  “they  jest  at  scars,  who  never  felt  a 
wound.”  Even  the  monster  brutalities  of  St.  Bar¬ 
tholomew’s  are  now  explained  away  in  American 
newspapers  and  encyclopaedias,  that  depend  too 
much  on  the  lucre  derived  from  both  circulation,  box- 
office  receipts,  gate-money  and  that  potent  system 
of  bribes  —  the  newspaper  advertisements.  Never¬ 
theless,  we  welcome  real  history,  that  destroys  un¬ 
just  prejudice  and  popular  notions  that  obscure 
facts,  revealing  truth  that  heals  divisions  and  unites 
in  holy  energy  those  who  serve  the  same  Lord  and 
Master. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 

The  very  fact  that  large  classes  of  the  population  in 
Belgium  and  France  —  in  the  main  the  most  intel¬ 
lectual  and  industrial  —  were  driven  out  from  the 
lucrative  posts  and  occupations  connected  with  the 
name  of  religion,  as  well  as  in  ordinary  industry,  re¬ 
leased  enormous  forces  for  action  elsewhere  in  the 
building  of  the  modern  economic  world. 

Such  expulsion  by  bigotry  was  the  best  conceiv¬ 
able  preparation  for  an  age  which  was  soon  to  come, 
when,  through  his  own  free  and  disciplined  energies, 
man  was  to  summon  to  serve  him  the  latent  and 
irresistible  forces  of  nature.  Some  of  these  unsus¬ 
pected  powers,  such  as  those  which  science  reveals 
in  steam  and  electricity,  were  to  be,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  human  invention,  greater  than 
man  himself. 

Hitherto  such  colossal  manifestations  had  existed 
only  in  the  realms  of  imagination,  in  mythology  and 
fairy  lore.  Now,  harnessed  potencies,  mightier  than 
Samson,  Hercules,  or  even  a  Frankenstein,  were  to 
become  the  obedient  servants  of  man.  The  light  of 
suns  at  unmeasured  distances  was  to  be  chained  to 
serve  him.  The  vapors  of  common  water  were  to 
drive  engines  and  propel  ships  and  cars  beyond  the 
might  of  horses,  even  though  harnessed  by  the 

124 


ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 


myriads.  Ordinary  air  was  made  to  reveal  unsus¬ 
pected  might  for  common  use.  The  mysterious  cur¬ 
rent  hitherto  visible  to  man  chiefly  in  the  lightning 
and  audible  in  thunder,  gave  the  world  a  new  nerv¬ 
ous  system  and  made  of  earth  a  whispering  gallery. 
An  atom  was  seen  to  be  a  miniature  universe. 

The  unseen  powers  of  the  cosmos,  hitherto 
thought  to  be  as  untamable  as  the  lion  or  the  ser¬ 
pent,  were  to  lie  down  together  and  a  little  child  was 
to  lead  them.  An  infant’s  touch  was  to  blow  up 
the  subterranean  obstacles  of  Hell  Gate.  Out  of  the 
alembic  of  nature,  in  the  heavens  among  the  stars, 
and  from  the  soil  of  our  planet,  were  to  be  sum¬ 
moned  new  creations  in  fiber,  food,  textiles,  tools, 
motors,  things  of  use  and  beauty,  and  lines  of 
achievement,  which  even  the  ancient  seers  and  inter¬ 
preters  of  dreams  never  in  their  wildest  imagination 
bodied  forth. 

In  the  new  era,  the  Almighty  Ruler  was  lifting  the 
curtain  to  say,  “Behold,  I  create  all  things  new.” 
Spreading  before  his  children  fields  and  vistas  of 
worlds  of  old  unknown,  he  was  to  smile  and  beckon 
man  on  with  the  invitation,  “Concerning  the  works 
of  my  hands,  command  ye  me.” 

Even  of  the  once  mysterious  Ocean  of  Darkness, 
the  Atlantic,  stretching  westward,  the  redeemed 
could  sing,  “The  sea  is  His  and  He  made  it.”  So 
trusting  the  Ruler  of  the  wind  and  wave,  mariners 
ventured  forth  to  discover  new  continents.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  the  first  idea,  in  southern  or  papal  Eu- 

125 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


rope,  of  a  Protestant  was  that  he  was  a  pirate.  The 
vicar  of  God  in  Italy  had  divided  the  whole  world 
between  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  were  not  all  oceans 
in  his  dominion? 

Banished  and  exiled  from  all  offices  and  methods  of 
livelihood  under  ‘‘the  King’s  religion,”  banned  even 
as  to  marriage,  parenthood,  assembly,  or  worship  of 
God  at  home,  the  men  of  the  new  mind  sought  other 
paths  of  opportunity  in  fields  afar.  The  French  Hu¬ 
guenots  followed  in  the  path  of  the  Belgic  Walloons. 
They  looked  not  in  vain  to  the  eternal  hills,  whence 
their  help  was  to  come.  They  heard  the  voice,  “  Be¬ 
hold,  I  set  before  you  an  open  door,”  and  even 
through  exile  they  entered  to  find  peace  and  prosper¬ 
ity,  in  the  British  Isles,  the  Dutch  Republic,  Den¬ 
mark,  Sweden,  Switzerland,  Russia,  and  Germany. 
They  even  sailed  beneath  the  equator  to  found  in 
South  America  and  South  Africa  centers  of  industry. 
Whether  under  the  Northern  Lights  or  the  Southern 
Cross,  they  leavened  with  their  joyous  spirit  and 
habits  of  life  the  communities  in  which  they  dwelt. 

One  might  make  a  varied  and  lengthy  catalogue  of 
the  products  with  which,  in  every  line  of  human 
achievement  and  industry,  they  surprised  the  Euro¬ 
pean  nations. 

In  England,  the  paper,  glass,  textiles,  dyes,  prod¬ 
ucts  of  the  soil,  improved  plants  in  the  garden, 
whether  exotics  or  staples,  with  the  newly  applied 
results  of  experience  in  trade,  finance,  state,  and 
warcraft,  changed  Great  Britain  from  an  agricul- 

126 


ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 


tural  to  a  manufacturing  and  colonizing  nation. 
What  they  did  for  England  was  felt  also  in  Scot¬ 
land,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  in  each  of  which  countries 
thousands  of  refugees,  whose  tongue  was  French, 
settled.  The  southern  “Irish  Walloon”  soldier,  the 
Scotch  dyer,  the  northern  Hibernian  maker  of  lace 
and  linen,  the  Welsh  sailor  and  explorer  —  who  was 
very  often  one  of  continental  ancestry  —  carried  the 
fame  of  the  Huguenot  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
Thousands  to-day  who  bear  names  first  heard  and 
written  in  Hainault,  Liege,  or  the  Ardennes  —  who 
are  “lost  tribes,”  so  far  as  it  concerns  their  own  per¬ 
sonal  knowledge  of  recorded  genealogy  —  wonder 
how  it  came  about  that  their  known  ancestors  were 
“British,”  of  the  three  or  four  kinds;  while  yet  they 
bear  names  that  are  unmistakably  French  or  Wal¬ 
loon  in  form.  And  this,  despite  those  phonetic  trans¬ 
formations  that  outrival  in  wondrous  shapes  the 
things  and  forms  of  life  that  suffer  the  “  sea  change  ” 
of  which  Shakespeare  makes  Ariel  sing  and  tell.  The 
numerous  statutes  of  England  relating  to  the  deni¬ 
zation  and  naturalization  of  allies  make  interesting 
reading  to  the  student  of  the  progress  of  civilization. 

In  Germany,  out  of  the  hegira  of  Walloon  and 
Huguenot  scholars,  merchants,  soldiers,  artisans, 
agriculturalists,  the  Great  Elector,  Frederick  Wil¬ 
liam,  embodied  a  French  state  in  his  realm.  At  Ber¬ 
lin  and  Cologne,  and  in  probably  a  score  of  other 
cities,  a  multitude  of  these  immigrant  craftsmen  “in¬ 
troduced  arts  previously  unknown  to  the  ruder  civil- 

127 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


ization  of  the  North.”  These  newcomers  made  the 
rivers  of  Prussia  arteries  of  trade !  They  opened  the 
mines  and  diverted  to  Germany  the  skill  and  metal¬ 
lic  products,  for  which  the  western  countries  had 
been  so  long  noted.  Prussia’s  regiments  were  might¬ 
ily  reinforced  by  these  refugees,  and  her  military 
power  made  more  efficient  by  exiled  officers.  In  the 
noble  families,  courtesy  became  prevailingly  the 
rule,  because  the  new  immigration  was  “solid  and 
civilizing.”  Nor  were  any  schools  in  the  Empire 
equal  to  those  founded  by  the  foreigners,  whose  pol¬ 
ished  language  became  that  of  the  court  and  diplom¬ 
acy.  The  Elector  promoted  the  study  and  publica¬ 
tion  of  French  literature.  Nor  does  Reginald  Poole, 
who  wrote  on  “The  Huguenots  in  Dispersion,”  err 
in  asserting  that  “the  society  of  Berlin  was  .  .  .  the 
creation  of  the  exile,  and  it  was  the  refugees  that 
gave  it  that  mobile  course  of  thought,  that  finer  cul¬ 
ture,  that  taste  in  matters  of  art,  that  instinct  of 
conversation,  which  had  been  the  unique  possession 
of  the  French.  They  diffused  their  own  spirit  — 
quick,  fine,  lucid,  the  spirit  of  French  vivacity  and 
precision.” 

What  one  may  tell  of  Prussia,  he  may  truly  affirm 
of  Russia,  as  any  one  who  has  studied  the  “address 
books,”  or  city  directories,  of  Petrograd  and  other 
Muscovite  cities  —  which  were  most  appropriately 
published  in  French  —  knows  well.  From  the  days 
of  Peter  the  Great  to  the  Treaty  of  Portsmouth  in 
1905,  when  the  Baron  de  Rosen,  great  grandson  of  a 

128 


ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 


Huguenot,  sat  opposite  Count  Komura  —  one  of 
the  writer’s  pupils  during  three  years  in  Tokyo  — 
French  and  Huguenot  influences  have  leavened  Rus¬ 
sia  for  the  better. 

Of  Sweden,  the  story  of  the  Walloon  who  created 
the  modern  iron  industry,  in  both  mining  and  metal 
working,  is  told  elsewhere.  The  narrative  of  how 
Denmark  was  leavened  for  the  better  and  French- 
speaking  churches  formed  and  still  maintained  in 
Copenhagen  is  of  absorbing  interest.  Into  the  hos¬ 
pitable  Republic,  the  stream  of  immigration  was  con¬ 
tinuous  and  ever-increasing,  until  America  helped  to 
absorb  the  mass  of  people  from  France  and  Belgic 
Land.  Apart  from  the  infusion  into  the  Dutch  East 
India  colonies  and  the  revenue  accruing  from  the 
Greenland  fisheries,  the  flourishing  book  trade  in 
French  and  the  outpoured  literature  in  that  tongue 
tell  their  own  story.  One  need  not  wonder  at  the  ex¬ 
ceedingly  numerous  names,  of  French  and  Belgic 
origin,  to  be  read  to-day  in  the  city  and  town  direc¬ 
tories  of  Queen  Wilhelmina’s  realm,  or  in  what  was 
once  New  Netherland,  or  in  the  Eastern,  Middle,  and 
Southern  States  of  the  American  Commonwealth. 

As  seen  in  our  day,  in  the  perspective  of  three  cen¬ 
turies,  the  historical  situation  was  wonderfully  like 
that  in  the  year  487  B.c.  Then,  in  prophetic  vision, 
two  eras  of  civilization  began,  of  which  the  world 
now  beholds  the  issues  and  results.  It  was  the  setting, 
in  humanity’s  stadium,  of  two  athletes,  that  were  to 
race  down  the  centuries  and  fling  their  torches  into 

129 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


the  ages  to  come.  Even  after  the  land  and  temples 
of  both  have  been  long  under  the  heels  of  the  con¬ 
querors,  their  stories  told  and  their  careers  ended, 
we  see  what  the  seer  meant  when,  twenty-seven  hun¬ 
dred  years  ago,  he  gave  the  word,  and  they  were  off 
in  the  race:  “Thy  sons,  O  Zion,  against  thy  sons,  O 
Greece.”  Yet  to-day,  after  the  fleeting  centuries, 
which  civilization  gave  our  race  the  greater  blessing, 
while  flinging  forward  the  torch  of  democracy’s 
progress  for  the  remaking  of  the  world  unto  ever- 
increasing  spiritual  solidarity? 

Neither  Walloons  nor  Huguenots  were  disobedient 
to  the  heavenly  vision,  nor  deaf  to  the  Voice  that 
called.  Both  went  forth,  scarce  knowing  whither 
they  went,  yet  with  songs  in  their  mouths  and  un¬ 
ending  gladness  upon  their  heads,  to  face  duty  with 
the  creative  eye  and  hand  and  to  bring  blessings 
wherever  they  set  foot.  Let  us  never  forget  that  the 
Belgic  Walloon  was  the  pilot,  predecessor,  and  ex¬ 
emplar  of  success  to  the  French  Huguenot,  even  as 
the  Pilgrim  set  the  mark  and  beacon  for  the  Puritan. 

Yet,  while  nine  nations  and  three  continents 
gratefully  confess  their  deep  debt  to  Walloon  and 
Huguenot,  in  the  crown  of  their  achievements,  may 
there  not  also  be  set  on  their  heads  the  supreme 
jewel  of  the  colonization  of  North  America?  It  is  to 
the  Huguenots  that  we  owe  the  idea  of  fashioning 
the  wilderness  beyond  the  Atlantic  into  a  garden, 
and  creating  on  the  new  continent  a  Protestant 
nation,  a  commonwealth  of  mental  freedom,  a  land 

130 


ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 


of  schools  unshackled  by  priest  or  bigot,  while  con¬ 
structing  a  temple  of  ordered  civil  liberty. 

The  dream  of  the  United  States  of  America,  free 
from  feudal  rulers,  kings,  emperors,  or  political  prel¬ 
ates,  may  not  have  taken  shape  in  the  mind  of  Ad¬ 
miral  Coligny;  but  it  is  to  the  French,  and  not  to 
the  English,  that  we  owe  the  initial  peopling  of  the 
Northern  half  of  the  American  continent  by  men  in¬ 
stinct  with  love  of  freedom.  Nor  has  any  one  made 
more  generous  acknowledgment  of  both  fact  and 
truth  in  this  matter  than  Sidney  Lee,  who  led  all  his 
countrymen  in  drawing  the  map  and  telling  the  story 
of  British  achievement  in  the  great  “Dictionary  of 
National  Biography.”  In  addition  to  his  colossal 
tasks,  he  wrote  thus  in  “Scribner’s  Magazine,”  for 
June,  1907: 

The  vision  of  religious  liberty  in  the  new  world  is  a 
Huguenot  creation.  It  was  slow  to  acquire  stern  enough 
sway  over  the  minds  of  Englishmen  to  move  them  to 
action.  .  .  .  The  word  written  and  spoken  in  France  of  the 
Calvinistic  colonies  did  penetrating  work  in  England. 
The  beginnings  of  New  England  were  cast  in  the  Hugue¬ 
not  mould.  The  great  American  project  of  Puritan  Eng¬ 
land  differed  from  the  French  schemes  in  Brazil  and 
Florida,  neither  in  motive  nor  in  principle,  but  [only]  in 
practical  achievement  and  enduring  triumph.  From  the 
colonial  failures  of  Protestant  France  followed  the  colonial 
success  of  Protestant  England. 

It  was  in  the  Huguenot  spirit  that  the  Puritans  of 
England,  when  penal  legislation  drove  them  from  their 
homes  [after  hospitable  welcome  in  the  Dutch  Republic] 
looked  to  America  for  protection  and  salvation. 

131 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


It  was  Gaspard  de  Coligny,  the  great  Admiral 
of  France,  who  shared  the  vision  of  the  Hebrew 
prophet  of  487  b.c.,  when  the  latter  set  in  dramatic 
contrast  the  equipment  of  the  two  athletes,  Greece 
and  Judah,  as  they  started  on  their  career  down 
the  ages  —  the  one  representing  arms  and  physical 
force  in  the  phalanx,  the  other  the  spirit  of  peace  and 
altruism  in  the  law  and  the  prophets. 

On  the  die  cut  for  the  memorial  stamps  and  the 
coin  struck  from  the  national  mint,  to  celebrate  in 
America  the  Walloon  Tercentenary,  there  should 
be  the  image  of  the  French  Admiral  Coligny. 

Not  the  least  notable  of  the  achievements  of 
Reformed  Churchmen  was  in  theology  and  liter¬ 
ature.  Yet  none  of  their  most  important  books 
escaped  the  attention  of  the  centralized  autocracy 
in  Italy,  by  which  a  new  form  of  repression  was 
organized. 

Only  the  slow  lapse  of  the  centuries  was  to  reveal 
the  results  of  this  law  and  ban  which  in  the  name 
of  God  was  laid  upon  the  human  mind  and  spirit. 
Alarmed  at  the  intellect,  scholarship,  power  of 
mental  discipline,  and  literary  attractiveness  of  the 
books  published  by  the  Free  Churchmen,  led  by  Cal¬ 
vin,  the  father  of  the  modern  public  school,  the  papal 
dynasty  proceeded  further  to  fetter  the  human  intel¬ 
lect.  Hence  the  founding  and  proclamation  of  the 
Index  Expurgatorius  of  prohibited  books.  To  read 
one  of  the  publications  of  the  Free  Churchmen,  thus 
banned,  through  a  majority  vote  in  secret  conclave, 

132 


ECONOMIC  CREATORS  OF  EUROPE 


by  a  bureau  in  the  Italian  city,  was  alleged  to  im¬ 
peril  the  soul’s  salvation.  A  priest  must  first  secure 
permission  of  his  bishop,  before  he  could,  without 
danger  of  eternal  damnation,  peruse  the  publication 
of  the  Reformers. 


CHAPTER  XV 


JESSE  DE  FOREST  AND  THE  SHIP 
NEW  NETHERLAND 

Jesse  de  Forest,1  a  fugitive  Walloon,  the  potential 
founder  of  New  York,  had  for  years  looked  for  a 
home  in  the  New  World,  but  he  did  not  at  first  apply 
for  aid  and  transportation  to  the  States-General,  for 
until  1621  there  was  no  West  India  Company.  Usse- 
linx,  a  Belgian  refugee  in  the  Republic,  had  persist¬ 
ently  agitated  with  pen  and  voice  the  scheme  of  such 
an  armed  trading  and  colonizing  corporation,  for  the 
colonization  of  America  as  a  checkmate  to  Spain. 
Yet  this  was  the  very  idea  against  which  the  great 
Barneveldt  was  fighting. 

The  East  India  Company,  formed  in  1595,  had  no 
jurisdiction  over  America,  nor  any  intent  to  colonize 
it.  In  1609,  their  great  purpose  was  to  find  a  shorter 
route  to  Japan,  China,  and  the  East  Indies.  To  this 
end,  encouraged  by  the  Walloon,  Peter  Plancius, 
they  commissioned  the  intrepid  English  pilot, 
Henry  Hudson,  in  the  Half  Moon.  This  ship,  named 
after  the  silver  omen  of  victory  of  the  invincible, 
self-named  Beggars,  entered  the  waters  of  what  was 
to  be  [Terra]  Nova  Belgica.  To  this  day  the  Dutch 
speak  of  the  crescent  as  4 ‘halve  maen.” 

1  His  story,  as  far  as  known,  is  told  in  A  Walloon  Family  in  America, 
by  Mrs.  Robert  W.  de  Forest,  2  vols.,  New  York,  1914. 

134 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


Hudson  sailed  first  towards  the  North  Pole,  but 
finding  himself  shut  in  by  icebergs  ahead  and  con¬ 
fronted  with  mutiny,  turned  his  prow  westward,  hop¬ 
ing,  beyond  America,  to  find  China.  With  this  end 
in  view,  he  sailed  into  the  waters  of  the  Middle 
States. 

By  1619,  the  Union  cause  in  the  Federal  Republic 
of  the  United  Netherlands  —  the  real  question  at  is¬ 
sue  being  hidden  from  most  historians  by  the  smoke 
screen  of  theology  —  had  triumphed.  The  perils  of 
state  right  and  secession  were  over,  and  the  men  of 
the  new  mind  were  ready  to  turn  faith  into  sight  and 
hope  into  fruition. 

Those  politicians  whose  entire  intellect  was  con¬ 
centrated  upon  protocols,  documents,  and  legal  rou¬ 
tine,  and  hence  could  not  discern  that  the  Dutch 
people  had  become  a  commonwealth,  a  nation,  and 
not  merely  a  huddle  of  sovereignties,  or  an  agglomer¬ 
ation  of  political  units,  had  lost  in  the  clash.  Both 
sides,  in  their  faults  and  their  political  convictions, 
and  in  the  violence  of  their  passions,  were  in  a  state 
of  degradation  beastward,  even  to  bloodthirstiness. 
In  this  general  wrongheadedness,  they  were  equally 
men  of  their  times.  The  sects,  in  their  undisciplined 
energies,  and  “the  churchmen,”  so-called,  were  rivals 
in  the  same  reversion  and  path  that  lead  not  to 
Heaven.  Barne veldt  was  beheaded. 

In  the  Netherlands,  there  were  statesmen  who  re¬ 
alized  that  however  faulty  and  imperfect  the  federal 
union  of  1579  might  be,  nationality  and  enterprise, 

135 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


with  something  more  than  the  assertion  of  state 
right  and  stimulus  of  the  home  market  in  Europe, 
were  needed  for  higher  purposes.  There  must  be  not 
only  resistance  to  Spanish  despotism,  but  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  a  true  commonwealth,  and  the  safeguarding 
of  its  existence. 

With  release  of  pent-up  energies  and  with  Wal¬ 
loon  and  Fleming  reinforcement,  an  advance  along 
the  whole  line  was  ordered  against  Spain  —  the 
giant  now  refreshed  for  a  new  onslaught  against 
liberty,  after  the  Great  Truce,  from  1609  to  1621. 

The  progressive  Union  men  resolved  that  the  un¬ 
leashed  powers  of  both  war  in  armed  ships  and  peace 
in  colonization  should  be  carried  across  the  seas,  even 
into  America ;  which  Spain,  by  papal  decree,  claimed 
as  her  sole  property.  The  new  continent  from  pole 
to  pole  lay  under  the  Spanish  scepter  and  ban.  All 
except  Spaniards  were  deemed  common  poachers, 
burglars,  or  thieves,  if  found  anywhere  in  America. 

To  wrest  this  scepter  from  the  Land  of  the  Inqui¬ 
sition,  of  gloomy  fanaticism,  of  bull-fighters  and 
slave  catchers,  to  cast  that  scepter  into  the  sea,  and 
to  free  America  from  Spanish  ideals,  the  men  under 
the  orange,  white,  and  blue  flag  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public  went  forth  to  do  a  work  which  was  completed 
under  President  McKinley,  in  1898. 

Yet  this  invasion  was  to  be  less  by  warships 
loaded  with  artillery  and  soldiers,  than  by  peaceful 
families,  even  those  who  in  the  long  run  were  to  con¬ 
quer  wild  nature  and  savage  man  by  tilling  the  soil, 

'  136 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


making  homes,  and  rearing  family  altars,  school- 
houses,  and  churches.  It  is  a  pity  that  Motley 
and  most  writers  treat  the  conflict  in  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  between  the  forces  represented  by  Maurice 
and  Barneveldt,  as  almost  wholly  theological,  and 
the  long  struggle  on  our  continent  between  Latin 
and  Germanic  types  of  civilization,  for  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  North  America,  as  chiefly  military  and  stra¬ 
tegic. 

In  the  former  case  at  Dordrecht,  in  1619,  the  con¬ 
flict  was  political,  envenomed  by  theology;  in  the 
latter,  it  was  mainly  social  and  economic.  On  Amer¬ 
ican  soil,  it  was  between  feudalism  and  family  life, 
even  more  than  of  forms  of  either  politics  or  religion. 
It  was  a  fair  test  of  ultimate  success  between  free 
churchmen  and  adherents  to  the  papacy. 

In  1619,  at  the  end  of  the  Twelve  Years’  Truce 
and  in  view  of  the  imminent  onslaught  of  the  rein¬ 
forced  Spaniards,  the  Dutch  government,  needing 
every  ship,  cartridge,  and  cannon,  could  not  spare 
the  two  men-of-war  asked  for  by  the  English  Separa¬ 
tists,  to  convoy  the  Speedwell  and  Mayflower  to  the 
Hudson  River  region,  in  which  they  expected  to 
locate.  In  1623,  however,  the  States-General  was 
ready  to  detach  an  armed  yacht  to  convoy  one  of  the 
West  India  Company’s  colonizing  ships  to  the  same 
region,  should  colonists  be  enrolled  to  go  thither. 
The  fur  trade  was  a  monopoly,  and  the  settlers, 
whose  passage  was  thus  furnished  free,  must  go 
out,  not  as  “the  summer  soldier  and  the  sunshine 

137 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


patriot,' '  who  returned  home  in  winter.  They  must 
agree  to  be  farmers  or  servants  and  remain  on  the 
soil.  So,  not  as  the  commercial  or  fishing  adventur¬ 
ers,  but  as  home-makers,  as  permanent  settlers,  they 
sailed  over  the  sea,  as  the  pioneers  of  Christian  civ¬ 
ilization. 

Few  natives  who  had  Dutch  grandfathers  wished 
at  that  time  to  tempt  the  risks  of  ocean  and  wilder¬ 
ness,  when  the  home  soil  was  so  fertile,  and  when 
industry,  to  use  their  own  word,  was  “booming.” 
Moreover,  the  Dutch  fully  believed  that  the  Span¬ 
iard,  who  had  been  once  beaten  to  his  knees,  would 
again  be  humbled  by  the  triumphant  Republic,  their 
freedom  be  fully  won,  and  life  more  than  ever  be 
worth  living  on  ancestral  soil.  They  had  already 
stood  confiscation,  killing,  and  burning  for  over 
forty  years.  Now,  with  true  Dutch  pluck,  they  were 
ready  for  another  grapple  and  to  stand  forty  years 
more,  if  need  be,  for  a  fight  to  a  finish. 

Yet  to  make  sure  of  winning,  it  must  be  a  case  of 
eendracht  magt  macht ,  that  is,  of  the  one  pull  all  to¬ 
gether  that  makes  might.  Such  being  the  situation, 
what  good  would  it  yield,  if  even  a  courageous  leader 
should  apply  for  Government  aid  in  ships  and  for 
the  resources  that  were  necessary  to  make  a  success? 
Most  colonial  enterprises,  thus  far  attempted,  had 
spelled  starvation. 

Such  a  leader,  who  combined  vision  with  daring 
and  an  indomitable  will,  stood  forth.  He  was  Jesse 
de  Forest,  a  Walloon.  Did  he  hate  the  Spaniard  and 

138 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


long  to  help  in  humbling  despotism,  through  hallow¬ 
ing  American  soil,  by  free  worship  and  by  honorable 
toil?  Would  he  help  pure  religion,  while  providing  a 
home  for  his  children  and  for  posterity? 

Long  before  1620  he  had  begun  to  dream.  In  Ley¬ 
den,  this  Walloon  was  established  as  an  expert  dyer. 
He  had  welcomed  those  later  comers,  the  Free 
Churchmen  outcast  from  England,  their  own  coun¬ 
try,  because  they  would  not  sell  their  consciences  for 
pelf  or  ease.1  After  all  the  doors  of  the  home  land 
had  been  tightly  shut  and  kept  barred,  they  too  had 
looked  to  America  and  for  a  home  in  the  wilderness. 
They  would  perpetuate  on  the  new  continent  the 
best  traditions  of  English  freedom,  for  they  held  the 
future.  To-day,  after  so  long  a  time,  England  is 
proud  enough  of  the  Pilgrims. 

The  subject  of  colonization  had  been  discussed 
by  the  Leyden  Walloons  for  years.  Most  probably 
Jesse  de  Forest  saw  the  picked  adventurers  bound 
for  America  —  only  the  young  and  the  strong,  for 
the  older  ones  stayed  in  Leyden  —  loading  the  boats 
in  the  canal  at  the  end  of  the  Rapenburg,  for  the  in¬ 
land  voyage  to  join  the  Speedwell,  at  Delfshaven. 
Then  he  applied  to  King  James  of  England  to  per- 

1  Bradford’s  History  of  the  Plymouth  Plantation  shows  us  how  close 
in  the  Republic  were  the  relations  of  the  “French”  (Walloon)  and 
the  Separatist  churches,  and  J.  G.  de  Hoop  Scheffer’s  History  of  the 
Free  Churchmen  [Brownists,  Congregationalists,  and  Baptists],  edited 
by  W.  E.  Griffis  (Ithaca,  New  York,  1922),  has  still  more  abundant 
references  to  the  English  and  Belgic  refugees  who  held  a  common 
faith.  By  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Walloon  churches 
in  the  Republic  numbered  sixty-eight. 

139 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


mit  fifty  or  sixty  families,  three  hundred  people  in 
all,  as  well  Walloons  as  French,  and  all  of  the 
Reformed  Church,  to  be  allowed  to  settle  in  “Vir¬ 
ginia.”  He  also  prayed  His  Majesty  to  furnish 
protection,  transportation,  and  defense  from  and 
against  all  enemies,  and  to  maintain  them  in  their 
religion. 

That  domain,  named  after  the  Virgin  Queen  Eliza¬ 
beth,  meant  the  geographical  space  anywhere  and 
everywhere  included  on  the  continent  claimed  by 
England  because  of  Cabot’s  voyage  of  1497;  but 
among  the  Dutch,  “the  West  Indies”  was  then  the 
common  name  for  America.  The  application  of  the 
Leyden  Walloons  was  sent  in  the  form  of  a  round 
robin  to  “the  wisest  fool  in  Christendom,”  through 
the  British  envoy,  Sir  Dudley  Carleton.  This  was 
the  same  gentleman  who  had  had  the  tilt  with  Elder 
Brewster  over  the  matter  of  printing,  which,  in  the 
main,  was  free  in  the  Republic,  but  in  England  was 
licensed  by  royalty  and  the  prelates  only.  These 
Walloons  wished  to  plant  a  colony  and  keep  to¬ 
gether  in  one  place,  using  their  own  language  and 
form  of  worship.  Jesse  de  Forest,  in  the  document 
—  which  can  still  be  seen  among  the  records  in  Lon¬ 
don  —  was  a  “certaine  Walon.” 

» 

But  de  Forest’s  proposition  was  too  liberal,  or  too 
specific,  for  the  English  of  that  day,  whether  repre¬ 
sented  by  King,  Court,  Church,  or  Trading  Com¬ 
pany.  The  influences  of  bigotry  were  hardening  into 
that  settled  policy  which  kept  back  from  America 

140 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


John  Robinson,  the  large-minded  and  big-hearted 
pastor  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

Yet  no  light  affair,  such  as  the  refusal  of  the  king 
or  a  corporation,  could  chill  the  dauntless  spirit  of 
such  a  man  as  Jesse  de  Forest.  He  had  given  up  his 
home  for  conscience’  sake,  and  had,  over  and  over 
again,  bided  his  time,  until  finally  the  opportunity 
came.  In  1620,  when  the  idea  of  nationalism  had 
triumphed  over  that  of  sectionalism,  or  secession, 
and  not  one  stripe  had  been  struck  from  the  Union 
flag,  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  was  formed. 
The  dream  of  Usselinx,  the  Walloon,  had  become 
reality.  The  time  was  ripe  and  American  coloniza¬ 
tion  was  settled  upon  as  the  policy  of  the  Republic. 
If  the  two  hundred  or  more  Englishmen  left  behind 
in  Leyden,  who  were  uncertain  of  their  sovereign’s 
mind  —  their  only  hope  being  that  he  would  wink 
at  their  venture  —  were  bold  enough  to  tempt  the 
stormy  ocean,  as  they  kept  on  doing,  from  1621  to 
1630,  who  could  keep  back  a  Walloon  —  ever  the 
typical  man  of  alert  mind? 

The  new,  clean  ship,  New  Netherland,  was  built 
by  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  to  convey  this 
Walloon  colony  to  America.  If  pure  faith  and  high 
principles  were  as  favoring  winds,  then  no  craft,  be¬ 
fore  a.d.  1623,  crossed  the  Atlantic  with  nobler  pro¬ 
pulsion. 

The  national  colors  that  floated  at  her  mizzen 
were  those  of  a  federal  republic.  It  was  the  first  flag 
in  northern  Europe  which  was  independent  of  per- 

141 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

sons,  whether  prelates,  feudal  rulers,  or  sovereigns. 
It  represented  seven  states  in  federation,  a  com¬ 
monwealth.  This  flew  to  the  breeze.  Their  mottoes 
were  “Union  makes  strength,”  and  “By  concord, 
little  things  become  great,”  while  the  piety  of  these 
argonauts  was  expressed  in  fervency,  “Nisi  Dom- 
inus  frustra” — the  title  words  of  Psalm  cxxvn  — 
which  were  sung  in  their  devotions  and  shown  in 
their  world.  Expanded  from  the  initial  words,  this 
meant,  “Except  the  Lord  build  the  city,  they  labor 
in  vain  that  build  it.”  These  Walloon  voyagers  were 
not  mere  dreamers.  Their  idealism  was  laid  upon  an 
unshakable  basis.  “They  looked  for  a  city,  which 
hath  foundations.” 

At  the  peak  of  the  foremast  was  the  proud  flag 
of  the  armed  corporation,  “ready  for  a  fight  or  a 
frolic,”  or  a  victory  through  industry.  It  bore  the 
monogram  G.  W.  C.,  meaning  the  Chartered  (Geoc- 
trooyd)  West  India  Company,  not  of  “Holland,” 
but  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  Netherlands. 

Of  this  monster  trading  corporation  —  besides 
possessing  powers  on  land  and  sea,  especially  those 
of  war,  for  defense  against  Dunkirk  pirates,  Spanish 
galleons,  and  hostile  savages,  whether  called  Chris¬ 
tian  or  pagan  —  it  was  expected  and  ordered  that 
first  of  all,  recognition  should  be  made  of  our  com¬ 
mon  humanity;  that  is,  the  fair  treatment  of  the 
aborigines  as  men,  whatever  their  condition,  creed, 
or  color. 

Every  square  acre  occupied  by  the  settlers  must 

142 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


be  paid  for.  It  was  a  case,  not  of  “may,”  but  of 
“must,”  in  this  duty  of  extinguishing  aboriginal 
claims  to  the  soil;  while  the  instruction  of  the  na¬ 
tives,  as  far  as  possible,  in  Christianity,  was  also 
made  obligatory.  In  addition,  the  Company  must 
provide  both  the  minister  and  the  school  teacher. 
On  board  the  ship  New  Netherland  was  the  Church 
officer,  consoler  of  the  sick,  leader  of  song,  and  con¬ 
ductor  of  worship,  with  license  to  marry  couples; 
for  among  these  colonists  home-making  was  the  su¬ 
preme  idea  as  the  basis  of  society. 

It  is  true  that  these  Walloons,  so  far  as  detailed 
and  complete  records  are  concerned,  stand  in  history 
clothed,  as  it  were,  with  but  fig  leaves  as  compared 
with  the  full  robes  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who  wear 
the  vestments  of  Bradford.  Comparatively  few  are 
the  relics  and  verbal  fossils,  even  as  recognized  in 
the  names  of  their  descendants  and  the  places  upon 
which  they  settled.  The  reason  is  plain.  They  had 
none  among  them  like  Bradford,  to  tell,  even  to 
minute  particulars,  their  own  story  and  clothe  their 
venture  of  faith  with  the  literary  garb  of  subjective 
opinion,  and  even  of  self-flattery,  sentiment,  and  ro¬ 
mance.  Nor  is  their  own  literature  of  polemics  or  de¬ 
fense  against  enemies  voluminous.  They  had  none 
behind,  in  the  country  they  had  left,  to  vilify  and 
caricature  them.  Despite  the  hatred  of  ecclesiastics 
who  used  their  own  speech  to  pursue  them,  the  tra¬ 
dition  of  them  in  their  former  home  faded  as  did  that 
of  the  Pilgrims  at  Scrooby.  Like  good  beginners  of 

143 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


a  better  time,  they  gave  up,  ultimately,  their  own 
language  and  united  with  their  neighbors  to  build 
the  states  in  which  they  had  found  refuge. 

We  have  no  sure  proof  that  any  of  the  colonizers 
of  1624  settled  on  Manhattan,  though  later,  some 
who  came  in  the  ships  New  Netherland  or  Unity 
made  their  homes  there  along  with  many  others. 
Until  the  name  of  the  future  city  (not  the  fort)  was 
adopted  as  New  Amsterdam,  the  island  settlement 
was  affectionately  spoken  of  as  New  Avesnes,  after 
the  birthplace  of  their  leader,  Jesse  de  Forest. 

No  company  of  American  colonizers  was  more  de¬ 
vout,  none  more  pure  in  morals,  nor  was  there  one 
more  ready  to  acknowledge  the  mercies  of  God,  or 
the  possibilities  of  good  in  man.  The  intimate  life  of 
the  churches  in  New  Netherland  and  their  records 
fear  no  comparison  with  those  of  colonial  New  Eng¬ 
land,  or  the  southland.  Certainly  no  hands  were 
readier,  no  feet  more  jubilant  in  helping  to  build  the 
American  Commonwealth,  than  those  of  these  grate¬ 
ful  children  of  faith  and  daring.  One  has  but  to  scan 
the  documents  of  church  and  town  and  the  muster 
rolls  of  colonial  and  later  wars,  or  of  the  Revolution, 
or  those  down  to  1918,  or  the  lists  of  patrons,  bene¬ 
factors,  or  educators,  and  of  able  men  and  women, 
and  count  up  the  shining  names  on  the  Nation’s  bead 
roll  to  be  convinced  of  this.  The  record  of  the  Wal¬ 
loons  and  Huguenots,  in  American  history,  is  ex¬ 
celled  by  none.  Yet  though  their  light  has  been  too 
long  hidden,  under  bushels  variously  named,  we  can 

144 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


discern  in  the  spectrum  of  critical  research  the  su¬ 
perb  bright  lines  of  their  story. 

We  do  not  read  of  these  argonauts  of  1624  having 
arms,  swords,  or  muskets,  or  of  any  desire  to  use 
them  on  the  natives.  They  trusted  more  to  their 
determination  to  do  justice  with  the  red  men,  and 
the  sequel  of  success  shows  that  they  trusted  not 
in  vain. 

It  would  reward  the  critical  student  to  search  and 
make  comparison  of  the  results  of  the  fire-and- 
sword  policy  in  dealing  with  the  Indians,  with  those 
following  the  methods  of  the  Prince  of  Peace.  Surely 
Lincoln  spoke  not  in  vain  concerning  the  negro  slave, 
and  our  Government  records  show  that  while  it  has 
cost  us  a  million  dollars  to  kill  an  Indian,  a  mere 
fraction  of  this  sum  now  educates  him.  Would  that 
the  spirit  and  praise  of  Roger  Williams,  Peter  Min- 
uit,  and  William  Penn  had  always  been  followed! 

However  varied,  in  blood  and  creed,  in  economic 
condition,  or  mental  equipment,  may  have  been  the 
colonists  of  North  America  —  numbering  in  their 
nationalities  at  least  a  score  —  or  however  we  may 
lack  the  exact  details  of  their  previous  life  at  home 
or  on  shipboard,  or  of  their  creeds,  or  their  motives 
in  leaving  their  old  home  for  the  New  World,  of  this 
common  truth  we  may  be  sure :  one  and  all,  in  each 
case,  they  followed  at  first  the  customs  and  tradi¬ 
tions  of  their  native  lands.  They  had  the  same  in¬ 
firmities,  ideas,  notions,  convictions,  and  specters  of 
the  brain  which  were  dominant  in  their  ancestors 

145 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  in  the  old  lands.  Hence  their  actions  tallied 
with  their  mental  acquirements,  heritages,  and  out¬ 
look. 

Nevertheless,  after  subjecting  to  the  hottest  fires 
of  criticism  the  “makers  of  America”  —  that  is,  the 
United  States  —  before  1790,  and  exposing  their 
limitations,  with  all  their  faults  and  infirmities,  one 
can  be  sure  that,  in  overwhelming  majority,  they 
were  from  the  countries  or  the  peoples  that  accepted 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation.  These  principles, 
when  fully  worked  out,  meant  the  separation  of 
Church  and  State,  a  free  press,  free  public  schools 
sustained  by  taxation,  no  interference  with  the  con¬ 
sciences  of  men  so  long  as  they  were  law-abiding; 
self-government  in  the  commonwealth,  and  absolute 
freedom  from  any  European  potentate  in  either 
Church  or  State,  with  unquestioning  loyalty  to  the 
constitution  and  laws  as  made  by  “the  people  of  the 
United  States.” 

Once  inside  Sandy  Hook,  and  past  the  Island  of 
the  States,  the  ship  New  Netherland  from  Amster¬ 
dam,  after  leaving  small  colonies  on  two  of  the  is¬ 
lands,  Long  and  Staten,  ploughed  her  way  north¬ 
ward.  Through  the  rippling  “River  Flowing  out  of 
the  Mountains,”  then  flush  with  the  water  of  the 
melted  snows  of  spring-time,  they  sailed  on.  The  eyes 
of  the  colonists  had  never  fallen  on  such  a  majestic 
stream,  so  imposing  also  in  its  environment.  In  its 
navigable  length  it  far  excelled  the  Scheldt,  the 
Meuse,  or  the  Sambre. 


146 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


Nor  had  these  Walloon  pioneers  ever  made  so 
long  an  inland  or  river  voyage.  Past  the  Palisades, 
through  the  Highlands,  in  the  shadows  of  the  Cat- 
skills  they  moved,  and  then  the  ship  beat  its  way 
through  the  low  meadowland.  At  last  they  came  to 
look  upon  the  site  that  might  be  as  truly  called  Tre- 
mont,  as  was  Boston ;  for  the  contour  of  the  land  in 
their  new  home  showed  the  three  distinct  slopes, 
with  ravines  between  the  ridges  —  now  hidden  by 
houses,  and  over  which  are  viaducts,  from  hilltop  to 
hilltop. 

At  the  base  of  the  hills,  they  erected  their  bark 
cabins.  Neither  here  nor  at  Plymouth  —  in  spite  of 
the  blunders  of  inaccurate  artists,  too  fond  of  mere 
quaintness  and  oddities  —  was  the  log  cabin  the  in¬ 
itial  type  of  domestic  architecture.  After  the  primi¬ 
tive  bark  dwelling,  the  later  huts  were  of  roughly 
dressed  planks,  and  the  still  later  edifices  were  of 
brick  and  stone.  Those  which  were  visible  to  the 
writer  in  1866,  or  which  still  remain,  show  in  beams 
and  girders  the  marks  of  the  broad-axe.  New  Paltz 
and  Kingston  have  the  larger  number  of  these  sur¬ 
vivals  of  colonial  architecture. 

The  members  of  Jesse  de  Forest’s  company  in  the 
ship  New  Netherland  were  the  first  regular,  per¬ 
manent  colonists  in  any  number  who  made  homes  in 
New  Netherland.  They  were  the  first  to  come  di¬ 
rectly  under  the  law  and  regulations  of  the  Dutch 
Republic  and  to  obtain  valid  land  titles.  Whether 
any  of  them  settled  on  Manhattan  is  of  far  less  his- 

147 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


torical  importance  than  is  the  cardinal  fact  that  they 
made  their  homes  in  New  Netherland,  on  the  soil  of 
the  four  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl¬ 
vania,  and  Delaware.  The  four  couples  married  on 
the  ship  were  put  on  a  yacht,  and,  ascending  Dela¬ 
ware  Bay  and  River,  settled  on  an  island  near  Tren¬ 
ton  and  later  lived  on  the  soil  of  Delaware,  which 
owes  its  statehood  to  the  Dutch  occupation. 

Between  the  years  1609  and  1623,  there  had  been 
various  spasmodic  visits  of  ships  and  men,  and  even 
of  women,  to  New  Netherland.  There  were  even 
temporary  habitations  built  and  fields  sown  and 
tilled  for  food.  The  Netherlands  Trading  Company 
had  been  chartered  for  trade  and  under  it  a  fort  or 
two  were  built  as  trading  posts.  Among  these  visi¬ 
tors,  explorers,  traders,  or  even  farmers,  before  1623 
and  1624,  were  Walloons,  who,  however,  came  from 
the  seven  states  of  the  Northern  Netherlands  and 
were  registered  as  citizens  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 

With  these  sporadic  visits,  with  the  activities  of 
individuals,  or  the  Netherlands  Trading  Company, 
or  even  with  the  first  occupation  of  Manhattan,  or  of 
any  other  island  in  the  archipelago  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Hudson  River,  however  important  these  matters 
may  seem  to-day,  to  the  inhabitants  of  one  State  or 
city,  our  narrative  does  not  concern  itself.  The  basic 
fact  is  that  during  the  Twelve  Years’  Truce  between 
Spain  which  claimed  all  America  and  the  triumphant 
Republic,  the  Dutch  Government  authorities  could 
not  honorably  enter  upon  the  enterprise  of  American 

148 


JESSE  DE  FOREST 


colonization,  grant  land  titles,  or  in  any  way  legally 
authorize  the  formal  colonization  of  a  continent 
claimed  by  Spain.  Nor  did  they.  The  States-Gen- 
eral  took  no  official  oversight  of  the  visitors  to  or 
denizens  of  New  Netherland,  granted  no  certifi¬ 
cates  of  private  ownership  of  the  soil,  nor  in  any  way 
violated  in  letter  or  spirit  their  plighted  good  faith, 
or  the  terms  of  the  Twelve  Years’  Truce  with  Spain. 
Both  governments  honorably  observed  their  agree¬ 
ments. 

But  the  National  Synod  of  Dort  —  held  against 
Barneveldt’s  state  right  provincial  and  peace  policy 
and  the  wishes  of  the  Arminians  and  carried  to  com¬ 
pletion  by  Maurice,  backed  by  the  Calvinists  and 
the  Unionists  —  cleared  the  ground.  The  West  In¬ 
dia  Company  was  formed  and  the  colonization  — 
not  of  Manhattan,  nor  of  the  Delaware  River  island, 
nor  of  any  specified  site  or  portion,  but  of  New  Neth¬ 
erland  —  was  decided  upon  and  the  colonizing  ship, 
named  after  the  new  province,  was  built.  To  execute 
the  national  decision  of  the  States-General,  it  was 
decreed  that  a  civil  government  and  land  titles 
should  be  given  to  the  settlers  and  the  new  terra ,  or 
land,  be  named  Nova  Belgica.  The  classic,  oldest, 
most  honored  name  of  the  country,  antedating  con¬ 
querors,  feudal  rulers,  thrones,  kings,  or  even  re¬ 
publics,  and  in  recognition  of  the  people  and  the  soil, 
was  chosen  for  the  seal  of  New  Belgium  (Sigillum 
Novi  Belgii).  It  was  not  an  accident  that  the  first 
governor  was  chosen  from  among  the  people  whom 

149 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


William  the  Silent  had  hoped  to  incorporate  in  the 
Republic  of  seventeen  states,  the  Walloon,  Peter 
Minuit.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  the  colony  on  the 
area  of  what  afterwards  became  the  four  States 
of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  and  New 
York,  formed  the  only  group  of  settlements  that  was 
under  one  government,  and  that  of  a  republic. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 

With  those  industrious  habits  that  are  second  na¬ 
ture  to  a  Walloon,  the  men  of  the  eighteen  families 
settled  at  Fort  Orange,  the  future  site  of  Albany,  and 
began  at  once  to  tickle  the  earth  to  make  it  laugh 
with  harvests.  With  houses  to  build,  the  ground  to 
plough  and  harrow,  and  homes  to  equip  with  com¬ 
forts,  the  days  sped  swiftly  by  and  sleep  at  night 
was  sound.  Sky  and  river,  fruitful  earth,  and  pleas¬ 
ant  climate  made  the  new  life  a  joy.  They  missed 
the  chimes  at  hours  and  quarters,  the  carillons 
making  music  in  the  air,  the  old  surroundings  of 
art  and  culture,  and  the  grand  edifices,  civic  and  ec¬ 
clesiastical,  of  the  home  land ;  but  they  were  happy 
with  new  visions  of  peace,  freedom,  and  prosperity. 
With  the  true  spirit  of  pioneers,  these  people,  of 
piety,  faith,  and  industry,  led  the  van  of  Distinctive 
America.  They  had  in  them,  deeply  rooted,  that 
which  best  makes  the  foundations  of  a  state  secure 
—  family  life,  industry,  and  religion.  Moreover, 
they  were  not  discontented  ladies  and  gentlemen 
seeking  gold  and  luxury,  but  plain  people  willing 
to  toil.  They  considered  life  worth  living  only  when 
the  primeval  law  of  eating  one’s  bread  in  the  sweat 
of  the  face  was  obeyed. 

There  is  no  drapery  of  mythology,  sentimental 

151 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


conceit,  or  swollen  family  pride  about  what  was 
brought  over  in  the  ship  New  Netherland,  nor  even 
vulgar  notions  and  popular  superstitions,  which 
grow,  like  fungus  on  a  dead  log,  and,  long  after  the 
event,  real  or  imaginary,  furnish  food  for  the  novel, 
the  pageant,  the  drama,  or  the  moving  picture  shows. 
Little  furniture  and  not  many  extant  relics  came 
over  in  the  vessel.  Yet  the  scene  and  the  emotions  of 
those  who,  with  their  families,  first  saw  the  sites  of 
the  future  cities  of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  Albany, 
and  Philadelphia  are  not  without  trustworthy  tra¬ 
dition. 

The  Walloons  won  friends  at  once.  They  did  not 
lie  awake  at  midnight  in  terror,  listening  to  the  blood¬ 
curdling  war-whoop  of  the  oncoming  savage.  Even 
before  they  reached  their  bourne,  the  first  link  in  the 
silver  chain  of  friendship  between  the  red  and  the 
white  man,  which  in  Iroquois  oratory  and  practice 
was  to  be  “brightened”  again  and  again,  had  been 
forged.  As  early  as  1614,  the  Dutch  commander,  af¬ 
ter  satisfying  the  natives'  claim  of  ownership  of  the 
land,  had  made  a  covenant  of  peace  with  the  lords 
of  the  Long  House. 

It  may  be  that  there  was  no  altruism,  or  indeed 
any  noble  sentiment,  on  either  side,  in  this  compact 
of  friendship  with  the  Five  Nations.  The  Iroquois 
sought  the  friendship  of  the  Dutch  for  the  sake 
of  firearms  and  for  vengeance  against  the  Hurons, 
their  old  enemies,  and  their  new  ones,  the  Canadian 
French,  and  the  Dutch  wanted  furs.  Long  are  the 

152 


MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 


memories  of  injured  men!  The  Iroquois  had  never 
forgotten  the  deadly  interference  of  Champlain  and 
his  comrades  dressed  in  iron  clothes,  and  with  iron 
tubes  charged  with  lightning  and  thunder,  when  on 
the  lake  shore  the  northern  and  southern  men  of 
the  Stone  Age  had  met  in  battle.  The  clash  of  con¬ 
flict  at  long  range,  against  the  warriors  of  the  Long 
House,  was  decisive;  but  not  because  of  superior 
war  craft,  or  the  valor  of  the  Hurons.  It  had  come 
about  because  of  the  white  men’s  partisanship  and 
their  new  weapons,  which  killed  invisibly  at  a  dis¬ 
tance,  when  no  bowstring  had  twanged  or  spear  had 
been  hurled. 

The  Iroquois,  having  from  the  first  been  treated 
like  fellow  human  beings,  were  determined  to  safe¬ 
guard  the  friendship  of  the  men  who  could  not  only 
trade  with  them,  but  also  vitally  help  them.  Hence 
the  “  Covenant  of  Corlaer  ”  lasted  much  longer  even 
than  Penn’s  covenant  with  the  Lenni  Lenape  In¬ 
dians  —  so  praised  by  Voltaire  —  even  until  the 
nineteenth  century.  Then  in  1874,  the  League  of  the 
Iroquois  itself,  in  the  presence  of  ex-President  Fill¬ 
more  and  some  of  the  highly  civilized  descendants 
of  the  Indians  —  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  rank  and 
fashion  —  was  dissolved.  The  friendship  of  red  and 
white  men  in  New  York  perdured.  This  “Covenant 
of  Corlaer”  became  a  barrier  to  French-Canadian 
aggression  and  was  one  of  the  factors  deciding 
Anglo-Saxon  domination  in  North  America. 

It  happened  that  shortly  after  the  arrival  of  the 

153 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Walloons,  at  Beverwyck,  a  war  party  of  the  Mohi¬ 
cans,  following  the  bad  example  of  the  Hurons  with 
Champlain,  tested  friendship  on  a  new  venture,  by 
making  use  of  their  Dutch  neighbors  as  allies.  They 
requested  Commander  Daniel  K.  Krieckenbeeck, 
with  six  of  his  garrison,  to  go  with  them  on  the  war¬ 
path.  Of  the  white  men,  one  was  known  to  be  from 
Hoorn,  in  North  Holland,  and  two  were  Portuguese. 
The  two  bodies  of  armed  men  marched  together. 

The  Dutch,  having  guns,  were  probably  in  the 
van.  When  about  three  miles  out,  they  either  met 
with  an  ambuscade,  or  in  the  open  faced  a  sudden 
and  furious  onslaught  from  the  Mohawks,  who  at¬ 
tacked  with  a  shower  of  arrows.  The  commander  of 
the  fort,  three  of  his  men  and  many  of  the  Mohicans 
were  killed. 

The  Iroquois  at  this  time,  like  our  own  far-off 
pagan  ancestors,  were  occasional  cannibals,  but  the 
cannibalism  of  the  American  Indians  —  as  Mary 
Jamison,  the  illustrious  captive,  has  explained  to  us 
—  had  a  religious  significance;  as  probably  was  the 
case  among  all  ancient  man-eating  or  man-burning 
nations.  Cremation  was  made  to  propitiate  the  spir¬ 
its  of  their  own  slain  warriors  and  to  satisfy  their  fam¬ 
ilies  and  kinsfolk,  who  mourned  for  the  lost,  while 
the  feasting  was  to  gain  the  courage  of  brave  foes.  In 
addition,  the  Mohawks  carried  back  home  a  leg  and 
an  arm,  to  be  divided  among  bereaved  relatives  in 
condolence  and  as  a  sign  that  their  enemies  had  been 
overcome. 


154 


MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 


In  this  case,  after  duly  roasting,  the  cooked  victim 
was  Tymen  Bouwensz.  The  other  bodies  of  the  slain 
natives  they  gave  to  cremation.  The  three  dead 
Dutchmen  were  buried  together.  One  of  the  two 
Portuguese,  who  tried  to  escape  by  swimming,  was 
hit  by  a  shaft  sped  from  an  Indian  archer.  Though 
wounded  in  the  back,  the  swimmer  succeeded  in  get¬ 
ting  away. 

Here  was  a  clear  case  of  unwarranted  intermed¬ 
dling  on  the  part  of  the  foreigners;  for  later  the  Mo¬ 
hawks  solemnly  declared  that  there  was  with  them  no 
malice  aforethought  against  the  white  men.  Only  a 
few  days  after  the  fight,  the  skipper,  Peter  Barentz, 
visited  them,  probably  at  their  village  of  Schenec¬ 
tady.  On  coming  back,  he  reported  that  “they 
wished  to  excuse  their  acts,  on  the  plea  that  they 
had  never  set  themselves  against  the  whites,  and 
asked  the  reason  why  the  latter  had  meddled  with 
them;  otherwise,  they  would  not  have  shot  them.” 

Because  of  such  dangers,  between  savage  tribes 
ever  at  war  —  though  probably  these  dangers  were 
more  imaginary  than  real  —  these  pioneer  Walloon 
families  were,  after  a  while,  removed  for  safety  to 
Manhattan.  The  Dutch  Director,  determined  on  suc¬ 
cessful  colonization,  made  a  “concentration”;  but 
sometime  afterwards,  when  the  situation  was  fully 
understood,  probably  most  of  them  returned  to  their 
first  allotment.  When  fourscore  years  had  passed, 
the  first-born  baby  girl,  then  an  old  woman,  Cata¬ 
lina  Trico,  testified  that  she  had  lived  for  three  years 

155 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


in  Beverwyck,  as  this  settlement  was  called,  after  its 
chief  staple,  beaver  fur,  and  during  this  time  “the 
Indians  were  as  quiet  as  lambs.” 

Modern  science  does  not  permit  the  scholar,  who 
has  studied  man  in  his  evolution,  to  consider  every¬ 
thing  in  savage  life,  or  among  men  without  writing, 
as  necessarily  or  intrinsically  lower  than  the  stand¬ 
ards  of  the  white  man.  Nor  can  it  even  be  proved 
that  the  Indian,  especially  the  Iroquois,  was  less 
original  than  the  white  man’s  own  ancestors  when  in 
the  Stone  Age.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  within 
a  short  distance  of  the  Walloons’  initial  settlement 
was  the  classic  Tawasentha,  the  legendary  home  of 
Hiawatha,  the  culture-father  of  the  Iroquois,  whom 
Longfellow  has  celebrated.  Close  at  hand,  also,  was 
the  beautiful  valley  of  Norman’s  Kill,  where  the 
children,  red  and  white,  played  together. 

While  the  wijk,  or  town,  was  named  after  the 
Beaver  (which  in  Dutch  is  Bever),  the  usual  local 
term  was  the  Fuyck  (a  bow-net),  because,  in  its 
shape,  the  new  settlement  resembled  the  bow-net  or 
fishtrap,  then  in  common  use,  which  kept  fresh  food 
on  their  tables.  It  rhymes  with  wijk. 

They  were  now  in  the  country  of  the  Mohicans, 
whom  Cooper  was  to  glorify,  and  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river  was  one  of  the  red  men’s  palisaded 
structures.  This  site  and  neighborhood  is  the  Green- 
bush  of  to-day,  and  here  in  later  times  was  the  home 
of  “  Yankee  Doodle.”  The  Mohicans  were  different 
in  blood  and  language  from  the  Iroquois,  but  formed 

156 


MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 


a  part  of  the  great  Algonquin  community.  This  like 
an  ocean  surrounded  the  island-like  League  of  the 
Five  Nations  of  the  Iroquois,  whose  habitat  was  at 
that  date  comparatively  small  in  area,  though  su¬ 
perbly  situated  for  defense  or  strategy.  From  their 
great  natural  castle,  on  the  ridge  and  western  flats, 
extending  from  Niagara  to  the  Hudson,  in  the  citadel 
of  America,  with  its  forty-nine  valleys,  all  admirable 
sally  ports,  this  agricultural  community  dominated 
many  tribes  in  every  direction. 

The  advent  of  the  European  interrupted  the  evo¬ 
lution  of  the  native  American,  and  in  the  main  de¬ 
flected  its  course  in  paths  that  meant  degradation 
and  destruction.  With  firearms,  the  Iroquois  were 
already  becoming  expert  gunmen  and  in  time  were 
to  terrorize  the  land,  even  to  the  menace  of  Mon¬ 
treal.  They  carried  their  scalping  knives  beyond 
the  Connecticut  River,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  Mississippi  River  on  the  other,  but  with  fiery 
liquor  and  new  diseases  under  the  persistent  pres¬ 
sure  of  the  covetous  white  man,  the  red  man  lost 
vastly  more  than  he  had  gained. 

Whether  or  not  the  newcomers  brought  cradles  — 
the  very  name  is  Celtic,  or  Walloon  —  we  cannot 
tell,  but  they  soon  had  need  of  them.  The  little 
Americans  could  not  be  carried  on  their  mothers’ 
backs,  like  papooses,  or  hung  on  trees  to  swing  in 
the  breezes.  They  must  the  rather  be  content  with 
birch  bark  cradles,  or  those  made  from  staves  or 
kegs  with  semicircular  rockers,  once  part  of  the 

157 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


heads  of  the  kegs  or  barrels.  Yet  of  all  the  babies 
born  on  the  American  continent,  dandled  on  mothers* 
knees,  or  sung  to  sleep  with  lullabies;  or  pleased  lit¬ 
tle  folks  amused  with  rhymes,  or  the  rattles  of  lan¬ 
guage,  or  the  lore  of  Santa  Claas  and  of  fairy  folk, 
not  one  set  was  more  richly  provided  than  the  babies 
in  Nova  Belgica;  for  no  land  is  more  affluent  in  leg¬ 
ends  of  St.  Nicholas  and  in  the  rhymes  of  the  chil¬ 
dren  inviting  or  praising  their  patron  saint,  than  is 
that  of  the  Belgic  Netherlands. 

Happily,  though  many  historiographers,  careless 
scholars,  many  books,  and  even  tablets  of  bronze 
and  stone,  talk  of  the  non-existent  New  Nether¬ 
lands,  when  Nova  Belgica  was  only  one  province  of 
the  Republic,  these  early  documents  preserve  for  us 
in  text  and  speech  the  name  Nieuw  Nederlandt,  or, 
in  English,  New  Netherland,  and  none  of  them  makes 
the  mistake  of  calling  a  Domine  a  “ dominie,’ *  for 
the  clerks  and  chroniclers  knew  their  Latin  too  well. 
The  vocabulary  of  Scott’s  novels  had  not  yet  led 
astray  the  makers  of  dictionaries,  whether  Ameri¬ 
can  or  English.  Nor  were  Irving’s  caricatures  even 
dreamed  of,  though  the  English,  who  owe  such  a  vast 
debt  to  the  Dutch  for  their  enrichment  and  civiliza¬ 
tion,  were  too  foolishly  ready  to  look  down  on  all 
non-insulars  and  even  Netherlanders  as  inferiors. 
Nor  at  that  date  were  the  northern  provinces  of  the 
Republic  spoken  of  as  Holland  —  a  misnomer  that 
has  outlived  the  name-giver,  Napoleon. 

The  coming  of  these  pioneer  Walloons  in  1624 

158 


MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 


was  as  the  first  drops  of  a  shower  followed  by  rills, 
yet  uniting  in  one  initial  stream,  which  afterwards 
joined  with  vastly  greater  affluents,  making  the 
French  Huguenot  flood.  The  fact  of  French  being 
the  first  language  spoken  in  the  homes  of  our  four 
Middle  States  marks  the  beginning  of  American 
taste  in  dress,  household  furnishing,  table  equip¬ 
ment,  personal  adornment,  and  indulgence  gener¬ 
ally  in  aesthetic  decoration,  which  differentiate  us, 
in  these  details,  even  from  standards  that  are  fixed 
and  notable  in  the  British  Isles. 

The  traveled  American,  visiting  his  ancestral 
home  in  England,  is  not  long  in  perceiving  this. 
Those  of  our  sectional  historians  who  keep  up  the 
legend  of  unmixed  English  culture  and  follow  the  no¬ 
tion  that  we  are  an  English  nation,  do  not  see  that 
the  founding  of  homes  in  New  York,  by  the  Wal¬ 
loons,  in  1624,  was  the  protocol  of  a  long  school  of 
education  in  tastes.  This  distinguished  the  Ameri¬ 
can  and  his  home  from  the  British,  even  though  lan¬ 
guage  and  innumerable  inheritances  come  to  us  from 
the  dear  Mother  Land  of  Britain  —  where  dwelt  the 
writer’s  known  and  recorded  ancestors,  in  the  rec¬ 
ords  of  the  ninth  century,  and  in  England  from  the 
time  of  the  Norman  invasion.  Nor  is  it  realized  by 
the  general  body  of  sectional  writers  that  the  fathers 
of  our  religious  liberty  are,  with  Roger  Williams, 
Peter  Minuit  and  William  Penn,  rather  than  either 
the  Pilgrims  or  the  Puritans  of  New  England. 

The  Walloons  made  perceptible  contributions  to 

159 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


the  civilization  that  was  to  blend  many  strains  into 
one.  “Distinct  as  the  billows,  yet  one  as  the  sea,” 
we  might  say  of  what  was  in  the  gift-laden  hands  of 
the  French-speaking  people.  These  came  first  from 
the  Belgic  Netherlands,  then  from  Walloon  France, 
and  finally  from  nearly  every  one  of  the  French 
provinces  and  from  the  lands  of  exile.  They  brought 
us  many  things  for  our  enrichment  in  mental  and 
economic  resources  and  the  improvement  of  our 
sensibilities. 

On  the  finer  side  of  life,  their  offerings  are  to  this 
day  manifest.  In  the  colonial  era,  the  interiors  even 
of  their  frontier  homes  were  neater  and  more  attrac¬ 
tive  than  those  of  the  Dutch  and  English  settlers. 
Instead  of  thick  woolen,  coarse  cloth,  or  dowdy  stuff 
at  the  windows,  the  glare  of  their  “lights,”  whether 
of  oiled  parchment  or  greased  paper,  was  tempered 
and  mellowed  with  dainty  white  linen.  On  the  floor, 
in  place  of  sand  and  rushes,  they  spread  textiles, 
made  of  odds  and  ends  of  worn-out  or  discarded 
clothing,  or  other  dry  goods.  These,  woven  in  their 
looms,  made  what  we  call  rag  carpet  —  cheerful  to 
look  at  and  pleasant  for  the  feet  to  tread  upon. 

There  was  at  first  no  need  of  rigid  economy  in 
larder  or  on  the  table,  when  game  was  abundant  and 
flocks  of  wild  pigeons  darkened  the  sun.  The  forest 
was  then  their  storehouse,  and  the  garden  their  pan¬ 
try,  while  they  looked  to  the  hills  whence  came  their 
material  help  in  herbs  and  simples.  Afterwards, 
they  introduced  and  showed  the  town-dwellers  many 

160 


MAKING  THE  WILDERNESS  BLOOM 


a  delicious  morsel,  and  even  the  delights  of  ox¬ 
tail  soup.  The  Newtown  pippin,  the  quince  and 
grape  culture,  and  the  first  vineyards  were  de¬ 
veloped  from  what  the  French-speaking  colonists 
brought  over.  Apples,  as  a  rule,  were  grafted  on  In¬ 
dian  stocks.  In  our  generation,  it  is  only  the  native 
varieties  of  berries  and  fruit,  or  those  budded  on  the 
aboriginal  stalks  or  trunks,  that  have  survived,  or 
improved  with  the  centuries.  Nevertheless,  while 
all  were  men  of  their  time,  the  wilderness,  the  fron¬ 
tier,  and  savage  humanity  had  their  influences  upon 
them;  and  these  were  early  efficient  in  making  one 
new  type  of  man,  who  could  not  be  in  full  conformity 
with  Old  World  ideas,  mental  scope,  or  contempo¬ 
rary  environment.  One  can  love  dear  Mother  Eng¬ 
land  and  her  people  and  his  own  English  ancestors, 
without  being  afraid  of  either  the  facts  or  the  truth 
concerning  others  than  British  Islesmen  who  helped 
to  make  the  American  composite.  One  can  do  this, 
while  detesting  the  European  inheritances  that  still 
linger  from  barbarism.  Our  forefathers  were  glad  to 
get  rid  of  these,  nor  would  have  them  in  their  new 
home.  In  a  word,  the  better  England,  the  better 
France,  the  better  Belgium  survived  in  America, 
and  the  history  of  the  United  States  rightly  inter¬ 
preted  sheds  glory  on  the  old  mother  lands. 

It  needs  no  creative  imagination  to  picture  the 
routine  of  life,  on  the  ship  of  these  initial  home¬ 
makers  of  our  Middle  States  or  in  their  new  homes. 
Daily  prayer,  the  singing  of  Marot’s  psalms,  and 

N  161 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


the  training  of  the  children  in  the  first  principles 
of  pure  religion  and  morality,  through  the  study  of 
the  Catechism  and  the  Creed  (the  Twelve  Articles 
of  the  Christian  Faith),  formed  the  routine  of  the 
months  at  sea.  Those  who,  like  the  writer,  have 
lived  among  the  descendants  of  the  Walloons,  know¬ 
ing  them  as  intimate  friends,  as  church  officers,  as 
leaders  in  business  and  society,  and  sharing  their 
faith,  inheritances,  traditions,  and  ceremonies,  can 
at  least  enter  into  the  spirit,  while  comprehending 
the  form  of  their  life  at  home,  on  shipboard,  and  in 
the  wilderness. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 

At  whatever  date  Manhattan  was  settled  with  fam¬ 
ilies,  we  know  that  Pierre  Minuit,  the  Walloon,  was 
the  first  governor  duly  commissioned  as  such,  in  the 
long  and  illustrious  line  of  the  executives  in  the  Em¬ 
pire  State. 

He  was  most  probably  one  of  those  men  who 
loved  his  little  joke.  He  often  wrote  his  name 
phonetically,  to  help  people  of  six  nations,  Belgic, 
French,  German,  Dutch,  English,  and  Swedish,  to 
learn  his  other  name  besides  Pierre,  Pieter,  Petrus, 
or  Peter.  Those  who  knew  no  French  had  to  be  told 
how  to  pronounce  his  name  properly  —  not  with 
the  final  and  hard  dental,  but  with  that  “phonetic 
decay”  in  which  a  Frenchman  revels.  Even  his 
autographs  are  found  written  Menuet,  Minnuet, 
Minnewit,  Minnewitz,  and  Minnawee. 

This  was  like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  who,  when  in 
the  Netherlands,  signed  their  names  in  Hollandish, 
which  was  done  to  help  the  clerks  and  business 
men,  who  thought  that  English  was  only  “broken 
Dutch.”  His  real  name,  which  was  Peter  Minuit, 
may  be  read  any  morning,  as  one  walks  down  Fifth 
Avenue  past  the  northwest  corner  of  Twenty-ninth 
Street,  where  stands  the  fourth  edifice  of  the  church 
of  1628,  in  which  he  was  an  elder.  There,  also,  is  the 

163 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


bell  which  later  called  the  worshipers  to  service  in 
structures  which  have  been  successively  wood,  brick, 
and  marble.  In  these  edifices,  the  first  a  horse  mill, 
have  gathered  for  worship  during  many  genera¬ 
tions  the  members  of  the  first  fully  organized  church 
in  North  America.  It  began  on  Manhattan,  and  un¬ 
der  the  Walloon  governor’s  administration. 

Who  was  Peter  Minuit? 

His  father  was  pastor  of  a  Walloon  church  at 
Wesel,  on  the  Rhine,  about  thirty  miles  east  of  the 
Dutch  frontier.  To  this  city  of  refuge  gathered 
many  hundreds  of  Belgic  folk,  who  had  fled  when 
Alva’s  invaders  entered  their  home  land — all  “ortho¬ 
dox”  and  also  “  Christians”  —  sent  to  hunt  heretics. 
Successive  waves  of  refugees  found  calm  in  Wesel, 
which  of  old  was  in  the  frontier  of  civilization  and 
which  has  had  a  wonderful  history.  It  was  from  this 
place  that  Charlemagne  started  upon  his  campaigns 
against  those  pagan  Saxons  whom  we  of  to-day 
idealize  almost  to  transfiguration. 

The  church  built  in  the  twelfth  century  in  honor 
of  St.  Willibrod,  the  great  apostle  to  the  Germans, 
who  had  died  a.d.  738,  stood  in  this  city. 

In  1 555»  when  the  structure  had  become  by  age 
“a  ruin  under  a  roof,”  the  English  exiles,  fleeing 
from  Bloody  Mary’s  persecution,  arrived  at  Wesel. 
Within  the  ancient  walls,  a  baby  boy  of  the  pilgrim 
father  and  mother,  Willoughby  d’Eresby  and  Cath¬ 
erine,  Duchess  of  Suffolk,  was  born.  A  pilgrim  and  a 
stranger  like  his  parents,  he  was  here  baptized.  He 

164 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


was  christened  and  named,  as  was  the  White  baby 
of  the  Mayflower,  Peregrine,  or  pilgrim,  his  added 
name  being  Bertie.  Many  English  exiles  christened 
their  infants  with  this  name,  Peregrine.  Others, 
like  Moses,  named  a  son  Gershom,  that  is,  driven 
out,  in  token  of  their  expulsion  from  their  native 
land. 

Shortly  after  this  date,  but  more  numerously  from 
1567,  the  Belgic  Netherlanders  flocked  into  the 
Duchy  of  Cleves  and  the  city  of  Wesel.  Stripped  of 
their  goods,  many  found  domicile  within  the  walls  of 
the  old  church.  To  the  pastor  of  these  refugees  was 
born  a  son,  Pierre  or  Peter,  the  future  governor  of 
Nova  Belgica. 

Five  items  of  glad  news,  one  after  another,  cheered 
these  lonely  exiles.  In  1609,  Henry  Hudson  returned 
from  his  discovery  of  an  unoccupied  and  lovely  vir¬ 
gin  land  beyond  sea.  It  lay  between  the  two  rivers 
which  we  call  the  Delaware  and  the  Hudson.  In 
1613  this  new,  or  eighth,  province  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
public  received  its  geographical  name,  New  Nether- 
land.  In  1619,  the  Dutch  Union  cause  triumphed. 
In  162 1,  the  West  India  Company,  for  the  coloniza¬ 
tion  of  America,  was  formed.  In  1623,  Jesse  de  For¬ 
est  and  his  company  from  Leyden  were  to  be  given 
free  passage  to  the  new  land,  which  two  years  later, 
in  1626,  was  to  have  a  civil  government  and  be 
named  (Terra)  Nova  Belgica. 

Until  1664,  many  Walloons  left  Wesel  for  America 
by  way  of  Rotterdam.  This  Rhine  region  became 

165 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


later  the  scene  of  war  in  which  an  English  army  took 
part.  While  the  Mayflower  was  on  her  ocean  way, 
Sir  Horace  Vere  with  his  brave  soldiers,  acting  with 
the  German  allies,  was  holding  the  Spaniards  at 
bay;  as  usual,  the  Walloons  and  Huguenots  suffered 
and  were  again  scattered.  During  the  Thirty  Years’ 
War,  thousands  of  these  doubly  exiled  Walloons  fled 
into  the  Dutch  Republic,  some  to  remain,  but  many 
to  cross  the  Atlantic. 

Later  on,  in  1688,  Louis  XIV,  infuriated  because 
Germany  gave  shelter  to  the  Huguenots,  whom  his 
minions  had  hunted  out  like  vermin  and  driven  from 
their  home  land,  sent  his  armies  to  ravage  this  Rhine 
region  called  the  Palatinate.  This  they  did,  exactly 
as  did  the  Germans  in  France  and  Belgium,  from 
1914  to  1918.  One  war  usually  breeds  another.  In¬ 
vaded  nations  have  long  memories. 

On  December  19,  1625,  the  ship  named  the  Little 
Sea  Mew,  having  on  board  Governor  Minuit  and  his 
secretary,  Isaac  de  Rasieres,  with  the  new  province’s 
seal  denoting  that  New  Netherland  was  organized 
with  a  civil  government  under  the  name  of  Nova 
Belgica,  started  from  the  Weeper’s  Tower  in  Am¬ 
sterdam  to  pass  northward  through  the  Texel.  The 
people  from  this  island,  when  at  home  named  the 
Van  Texels,  were  in  America  called  the  Van  Tassels 
—  as  all  who  have  read  Washington  Irving’s  ro¬ 
mances  may  know,  and  as  the  honored  names  in  the 
Tarry  town  church  records  show. 

Yet  the  governor’s  patience  was  sorely  tried,  for 

166 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


he  and  his  were  kept  a  month  in  the  Zuyder  Zee  be¬ 
cause  of  the  ice.  No  doubt  sailors  and  passengers 
whiled  away  part  of  the  time  with  their  skates,  sleds, 
ice  yachts,  and  various  winter  sports;  all  of  which, 
besides  having  Dutch  names,  were  introduced  into 
New  Netherland  and  are  with  us  to-day  in  New 
York  and  New  Jersey.  Minuit’s  title  was  Director- 
General  of  New  Netherland.  He  arrived  May  4, 
1626. . 

The  threefold  functions  of  government,  as  differ¬ 
entiated  by  Isaiah  (xxxm.  22)  first,  and  Aristotle  af¬ 
ter  him,  into  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial,  were 
not  yet  formulated  in  the  new  colony,  but  in  Nova 
Belgica,  Minuit  had  to  act  in  all  three  capacities. 
Not  yet  was  evolved  that  wonderful  system  of 
checks  and  balances  which,  in  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  makes  the  complex  political  ma¬ 
chinery  work  so  well.  Associated  with  the  governor 
were  also  a  council,  a  schout-fischal,  or  treasurer, 
and  the  secretary,  Isaac  de  Rasieres. 

The  oldest  known  documents  in'  the  archives  of 
the  Empire  and  Keystone  States,  are  those  which  re¬ 
cord  that  in  the  first  instance  a  Walloon,  and  in  the 
second,  the  son  of  a  Dutch  mother,  made  treaties  of 
peace  with  the  Indians  and  paid  for  the  land  which 
they  and  their  people  were  to  occupy.  There  is  the 
bill  of  sale  of  Manhattan,  which,  with  the  sufficing 
brevity  of  a  telegram,  yet  with  sufficient  details, 
tells  the  double  story.  Yet  this  purchase  of  land  on 
Manhattan  was  not  understood  by  the  Indians  to 

167 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

cover  the  entire  island,1  nor  did  it  mark  “the  birth 
of  New  York  City.”  The  transaction  was  a  prelimi¬ 
nary  for  all  New  Netherland.  From  this  time  forth, 
settlers  obtained  valid  land  titles. 

The  ship  returning  to  Patria  carried  good  news 
from  the  island  and  also  from  “up  the  river,”  show¬ 
ing  that  Mother  Earth  had  done  her  part  in  making 
the  wilderness  bloom  and  in  providing  food  for  man ; 
while  in  the  homes  the  cradles  rocked  with  new 
treasures,  when  the  first  babies,  a  boy  and  a  girl,  be¬ 
gan  what  was  for  each  of  them  a  long  life  voyage. 
“Corn”  in  those  very  early  days  did  not  mean 
maize  —  then  called  in  Europe,  where  it  was  a  curi¬ 
osity,  “Turkish  wheat.”  In  truth,  it  took  some  time 
for  the  white  man  to  learn  from  the  natives  the  fine 
art  of  its  cultivation,  its  proper  culinary  prepara¬ 
tion,  and  the  gustatory  delights,  consequent  upon 
its  correct  treatment,  by  roasting,  boiling,  or  mixing 
with  beans  in  succotash,  which  even  yet  Europe 
scarcely  knows.  In  Britain,  without  our  hot  Ameri¬ 
can  summers,  Indian  corn  scarcely  reaches  the 
height  of  a  yardstick,  by  October.  In  Nova  Belgica, 
rye,  barley,  oats,  buckwheat,  canary  seed,  and  beans 
well  supplied  the  larder  for  man,  fowl,  and  beast,  in 
preparation  for  winter’s  needs. 

Among  the  live  things  of  glory  and  beauty,  awak¬ 
ening  sweet  memories  of  the  old  home,  was  the  blue 
flax  flower.  Of  the  glossy  silk-like  fiber  in  the  stalk, 
the  women  soon  began  to  make  linen  and  much 
1  See  Riker’s  History  of  Harlem  for  full  proof  of  this. 

1 68 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


later,  carpet,  lace,  and  tapestry.  Even  in  these  early 
days,  the  Walloons  excelled  the  Dutch  and  English 
in  the  daintiness  of  indoor  furnishing. 

No  mythical  and  few  genuine  articles  of  furniture, 
brought  over  on  the  early  ships  from  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  were  seen,  for  example,  in  the  famous  loan  ex¬ 
hibition  in  Schenectady  in  1880;  but  dainty  products 
in  lace  and  linen,  made  even  in  early  frontier  days  by 
the  pioneer  Walloons,  were  in  trustworthy  evidence. 
Of  cake  moulds  and  things  smaller  in  bulk  and  easily 
portable,  however,  there  were  many. 

The  terse  document  which  tells  of  the  purchase  of 
Manhattan  states  also  that,  besides  what  the  vege¬ 
table  world  furnished,  the  animals  that  paid  tribute 
for  man’s  clothing,  in  a  way  that  was  to  fill  the  cof¬ 
fers  of  the  home  land  directors  and  the  pockets  of 
the  merchants,  served  for  barter.  Even  before  this 
date,  the  beaver’s  effigy  had  entered  heraldry  as  a 
welcome  newcomer  and  was  on  the  seal  of  Nova  Bel- 
gica.  For  a  century  afterward,  this  animal,  repre¬ 
senting  both  value  and  the  production  of  value,  was 
the  symbol  and  the  standard  of  currency,  the  actual 
pelt  serving  in  place  of  coin.  It  was  fitting  that  the 
settlement  on  the  frontier  of  the  colony  at  the  head 
of  river  navigation,  where  Albany  now  stands, 
should  be  named  “Beverwijk”  (Beverwyck). 

Governor  Minuit  did  not  wait  long  before  attend¬ 
ing  to  the  courtesies  proper  among  Christians.  He 
wrote  a  letter  to  Plymouth  and  closed  with  expres¬ 
sion  of  sincere  piety,  commending  to  God’s  grace 

169 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  favor  the  “High  and  Mighty  Lords”  of  the 
Company,  using  the  “ complimental  titles”  of  which 
Bradford  tells  us. 

If  monarchs  boasted  of  their  power  in  high-sound¬ 
ing  terms  of  praise  and  in  self-glorification,  why 
should  not  republicans  do  the  same?  In  the  attri¬ 
butes  and  customs  of  autocracy  or  royalty,  in 
whatever  was  worth  imitating,  the  Dutch  asserted 
equality  by  trumpet,  flag,  costume,  badge  of  office, 
and  in  rhetoric,  document,  and  fact.  Hence  their 
titles!  Especially  when  on  land  and  sea  they  had 
humbled  Spain,  and  even  by  colonizing  the  conti¬ 
nent  claimed  by  His  Most  Christian  Majesty  — - 
who  so  delighted  in  roasting  his  subjects  —  did  the 
Dutch  “put  on  airs.”  Most  fittingly,  also,  did  their 
legislators  call  themselves  “Their  High  Mighti¬ 
nesses.” 

Among  the  most  assuring  items  of  news  in  the  man¬ 
ifest  of  this  initial  ship,  outward  bound  from  what 
is  now  the  world’s  greatest  port  and  freighted  with 
the  first  official  document  from  New  Netherland, 
was  the  report  of  the  friendliness  of  the  Indians 
—  harbinger  of  the  success  of  the  Walloon  venture. 
This  was  the  dayspring  of  the  full  glory  of  possession 
by  the  Empire  State  of  the  largest  store  in  America 
of  wampum  belts,  seals,  and  signs  of  justice  to  the 
Indian  and  the  perpetuity  of  his  friendship. 

Nearly  two  centuries  after  the  schout-fischal  had 
appraised,  in  guilders,  with  perhaps  stivers  and  cents 
thrown  in,  the  market  value  of  the  Manhattan  of 

170 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


1624,  in  his  report  to  “John  Company,”  Alexander 
Hamilton  continued  Peter  Minuit’s  work.  This  de¬ 
scendant  of  Huguenots  and  America’s  greatest  arch¬ 
itect  of  government,  adopted  for  Americans,  in  the 
States  gathered  in  a  federal  republic  (e  pluribiis 
unum ),  their  financial  system.  Under  the  old  Dutch 
flag,  with  six  more  stripes,  and  stars  thirteen  added, 
Hamilton  gave  us  what  was  essentially  the  Dutch 
decimal  system,  with  dalers  (dollars),  cents,  and 
mills. 

The  old  Teutonic  arrangement  of  pounds,  shil¬ 
lings,  and  denarii  (£  s.  d.)  —  which  system  meant 
varying  standards  of  value  in  the  different  colonies 
—  was  rejected.  A  simpler  arrangement,  virtually 
that  of  the  Netherlands,  was  adopted,  though  the 
Spanish  symbol  for  dollars  —  the  gates  of  Hercules 
($)  —  was  retained.  Even  in  the  writer’s  boyhood, 
the  Spanish  coins,  the  “two-pillared”  silver  dol¬ 
lar,  the  “levy”  (eleven  cents),  and  the  “fip”  (five- 
pence),  were  in  general  circulation.  The  guilder  is 
now  equal  to  four  dimes,  or  eight  nickels,  or  forty 
American  cents. 

Evidently  Minuit  was  a  man  of  energy,  who  de¬ 
sired  to  “do  justice,  love  mercy,  and  walk  humbly 
with  God”;  but  he  had  enemies  who  slandered  him; 
for  the  love  of  money  was  strong  among  the  adven¬ 
turers  who  began  to  flock  in.  Minuit ’s  idea  was  to 
discover  and  develop  to  the  full  the  resources  of  the 
new  land.  He  found  unusually  large  and  fine  timber 
in  the  region  of  the  Mohawk,  and  so,  utilizing  some 

171 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


of  the  ship  carpenters  —  probably  fellow  believers 
from  Sweden,  though  all  men  from  lands  north  of  the 
Netherlands  were  called  “Normans”  by  the  Dutch 
—  he  built  one  of  the  largest  seaworthy  vessels  of  the 
time.  It  was  pierced  to  carry  thirty  guns,  for  trading 
and  fighting  usually  went  together  in  those  days.  It 
crossed  the  ocean  —  being  probably  the  first  “liner” 
from  America  and  from  the  Netherlands  —  and  af¬ 
ter  exciting  wonder  for  its  size  and  excellent  struc¬ 
ture,  was  long  used  for  trade  in  the  West  Indies. 

The  home  directors,  however,  complained  that 
this  ship  cost  too  much,  which  meant  most  probably 
that  they  wanted  “quick  returns  ” ;  that  is,  more  rev¬ 
enue  from  the  fur  trade  and  easy  money  in  their 
pockets.  In  fact,  they  were  not  very  anxious  that  the 
colonists  should  be  too  enterprising,  lest  they  might 
develop  ambition  to  trade  on  their  own  account. 

Minuit  was  too  much  of  “a  people’s  man ”  to  suit 
a  corporation,  the  first  and  last  idea  of  which  was 
‘ 1  dividends.  ’  ’  The  non-stockholders  who  were  not  di¬ 
rect  agents  of  the  home  corporation  were  supposed 
never  to  trade,  but  only  to  serve  and  till  the  soil. 
Like  many  capitalists  in  our  time,  “John  Company” 
and  the  patroons  were  generous  in  providing  for  the 
colonists’  comfort,  thus  aiming  to  secure  good  work¬ 
ing  and  richly  productive  animals;  but,  from  meas¬ 
ures  for  the  making  and  development  of  manhood 
and  noble  citizenship,  they  preferred  to  be  excused. 

All  evidence  seems  to  show  that  the  same  greedy 
men,  of  the  same  type  of  mind,  with  the“  get-rich- 

172 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


quick”  spirit,  dominated  the  factions  in  the  Dutch 
West  India  Company  as  prevailed  also  in  the 
English  corporation  which  had  equipped  the  May¬ 
flower,  but  also  virtually  fettered  if  they  did  not  en¬ 
slave  the  Pilgrims,  while  putting  a  veto  on  Robin¬ 
son’s  ever  reaching  America.  “Nature  takes  out  of 
the  man  what  she  puts  into  the  chest.”  In  due  time 
the  Dutch  West  India  went  to  financial  smash. 

The  same  data  of  information  seem  to  prove  that 
Governor  Minuit  was  more  earnest  for  justice  to  be 
meted  out  to  the  settlers  than  in  currying  favor  with 
the  corporation.  At  any  rate,  nepotism  prevailed  in 
the  Amsterdam  office.  Minuit  was  recalled,  and  a 
Director’s  nephew,  a  clerk  from  one  of  the  Com¬ 
pany’s  desks,  was  put  in  his  place.  In  hostile  tradi¬ 
tion,  he  stands  without  much  character,  brains,  or 
experience,  but  with  an  excessive  love  and  capacity 
for  liquor.  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  who  was  sent  in  the 
place  of  the  competent  governor  Minuit,  furnished 
Washington  Irving  a  fitting  figure  for  his  caricatures. 
Nevertheless,  except  when  and  where  shackled  by 
the  Company’s  strict  orders,  Van  Twiller  was  full  of 
youth,  fire,  and  energy  in  his  acts.  Until  the  new  Di¬ 
rector-General  arrived,  Sebastian  Krol  (pronounced 
krull),  church  elder,  from  whom  the  toothsome 
“cruller”  —  so  tradition  avers  —  took  its  name,  had 
charge  of  affairs.  In  the  years  after  1664,  the  Direc- 
tors-General  of  New  Netherland  were  called  by  the 
English  “Governors.” 

On  reaching  Europe  and  knowing  that  many  of  his 

173 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


industrious  and  enterprising  fellow  Walloons  were  in 
Sweden,  Peter  Minuit  sought  and  was  offered  service 
by  Oxenstierna,  the  great  Swedish  Chancellor  of  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus,  who  directed  the  policy  of  Sweden 
during  the  Thirty  Years’  War,  and  who  was  then  in 
the  Dutch  Republic.  At  his  instigation,  Minuit  led  a 
colony  of  Swedes  and  Finns  into  the  Delaware  val¬ 
ley.  The  world  knows  their  history  and  the  Luther¬ 
ans  and  Episcopalians  their  church  life,  while  many 
of  the  names  in  the  Philadelphia  and  Wilmington 
city  directories  still  recall  those  of  Scandinavian  an¬ 
cestors.  Their  church  edifices,  yet  standing  on  the 
historic  spots,  from  which  the  large  part  of  the  two 
cities  have  grown  away,  bear  witness  to  the  piety, 
taste,  and  prosperity  of  these  Swedes,  Finns,  and 
Walloons. 

It  was  to  the  glorious  old  church  edifice,  new  in 
1700  but  now  much  altered  in  form,  standing  in  the 
leafy  and  woody  Indian  village  of  Wecaco,  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love,  where 
the  singing  birds  were  so  plentiful,  that  Longfellow, 
our  poet  of  Huguenot  descent,  tells  us  Evangeline 
came.  In  the  once  octagonal  brick  church  of  Gloria 
Dei  —  which  the  writer  as  a  child  often  attended, 
part  of  his  infancy  and  early  childhood  being  spent 
in  Swanson  Street  on  land  purchased  of  a  Swede  of 
that  name,  by  William  Penn  —  the  beautiful  ritual 
of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  is  still  read  on  Sab¬ 
bath  days. 

The  world  still  waits  for  the  poet,  the  painter,  and 

174 


GOVERNOR  PETER  MINUIT 


the  sculptor  to  interpret  in  terms  of  art  the  story 
of  both  the  Swedes  and  the  Walloons. 

When  in  Nova  Belgica,  during  his  six  years'  ad¬ 
ministration  Peter  Minuit,  by  his  spirit  and  through 
his  inheritances,  showed  himself  a  lover  of  freedom 
and  more  in  sympathy  with  human  beings  than  with 
soulless  corporations.  He  was  disgusted  with  the 
grasping  spirit  of  the  monopolists  at  home  and  of 
those  greedy  seizers  of  land  in  the  colony,  whom  he 
often  checkmated.  He  was  so  much  of  a  people’s 
man,  that  he  was  dismissed  because  of  his  too  great 
sympathy  with  his  fellow  Christians  and  the  colo¬ 
nists  in  general.  He  protected  them  as  far  as  possible 
against  unscrupulous  men  in  “big  business.” 

This  son  of  a  Huguenot  minister  was  the  precur¬ 
sor  of  another  minister’s  son,  a  later  champion  of 
the  lower  classes,  Jacob  Leisler,  who  appeared  in  his¬ 
tory  when  most  sorely  needed.  Against  the  spirit  of 
feudalism,  both  Dutch  and  English,  that  hindered 
the  normal  growth  of  New  Netherland  and  New 
York,  it  was  well  for  future  America  that  she  had 
two  such  men,  who  were,  like  Lincoln,  assertors  of 
the  rights  of  the  plain  people,  whom  “God  must 
have  loved,  because  He  made  so  many  of  them.” 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
SECRETARY  ISAAC  DE  RASIERES 

There  are  men  and  women  who  make  their  names 
famous  in  history  by  doing  one  thing.  In  the  Bible 
there  are  many  single-line  biographies.  They  may 
write  a  poem,  paint  a  picture,  say  a  grand  word,  do 
a  good  act,  or  in  a  sentence  reveal  some  short  cut 
to  knowledge.  Perhaps  at  the  time  they  may  think 
that  they  are  acting  only  in  commonplace  routine, 
doing  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary  program  of  each 
day’s  work.  They  might  even  “blush  to  find  it 
fame.”  The  results,  of  which  the  world  takes  notice, 
may  be  unknown  to  them,  or  follow  long  after  they 
have  passed  away.  They  come  to  honor  and  know  it 
not.  After  centuries  of  oblivion,  a  grateful  people 
may  summon  genius  to  glorify  their  names,  in  paint¬ 
ing,  statue,  memorial,  or  tablet.  In  the  world’s  Hall 
of  Fame  are  many  Marys  of  low  degree  and  Josephs 
raised  from  the  pit.  “History  is  a  resurrection.” 

Such  undoubtedly  was  the  feeling  of  many  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers.  Neither  they  nor  the  Mothers 
knew  anything  of  “the  trumpet  that  sings  of  fame.” 
Of  the  Unknown  Soldier,  who  died  in  the  Great  War, 
we  may  say  this  also,  as  over  his  dust,  “in  the 
grave’s  democracy,”  kings  bow  their  heads  and  sa¬ 
lute  him  as  one  of  those  of  whom  the  poet  sings: 

“On  Fame’s  eternal  camping-ground 
Their  snow-white  tents  are  spread.” 

176 


SECRETARY  ISAAC  DE  RASIERES 


One  of  such,  among  the  Walloon  pioneers  in  New 
Belgic  Land,  was  the  secretary  of  its  first  governor. 
He  served  well  his  chief  and  his  masters  in  the  West 
India  Company.  In  addition  to  routine  duties,  he 
made  a  visit  to  old  friends  and  neighbors  in  Leyden, 
the  English  Separatists  at  Plymouth,  Massachu¬ 
setts,  to  bear  the  Christian  greetings  of  the  governor 
of  Nova  Belgica  and  his  fellow  colonists  of  like  faith 
and  hope. 

The  letter  of  Isaac  de  Rasieres,  written  in  1628,  to 
his  friend  and  well-wisher,  Samuel  Blommaert,  who 
lived  in  Amsterdam,  gives  what  no  other  writing  of 
the  time  has  done;  that  is,  a  detailed  picture  of  the 
social  and  Sabbath  life  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth. 
Incidentally,  it  reveals  to  us  why,  in  America,  the 
man  in  church  still  sits  at  the  end  of  the  pew  nearest 
the  aisle,  in  which,  during  colonial  days,  muskets 
were  stacked  for  quick  use  in  case  of  Indian  attack. 
De  Rasieres'  painting  in  ink  and  words  is  as  minute 
and  fascinating  as  that  in  oil  and  on  canvas  of  the 
Flemish  artist  Ostade,  for  it  is  full  of  lively  details. 
His  account  of  the  church  parade,  led  by  Elder 
Brewster  and  Miles  Standish,  stirs  us  like  a  bugle 
blast,  or  the  beat  of  drums.  From  de  Rasieres’  de¬ 
scription  George  H.  Boughton  painted  his  famous 
picture. 

To  Governor  Peter  Minuit’s  letter  Governor 
Bradford  replied  with  equal  courtesy  and  in  the 
spirit  of  Christian  brotherhood,  writing  in  both 
Dutch  and  English. 


1 77 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

t 

De  Rasieres  penned  his  letter  on  the  26th  of  Sep¬ 
tember,  1626,  outside  Fort  Amsterdam,  on  Manhat¬ 
tan,  in  Nova  Belgica,  and  in  what  some  called  New 
Avesnes,  or  New  Avennes,  on  the  plantation  of  Old 
Jan  Lampo  and  Cornelis  Van  Voorst.  It  was  north 
of  Canal  Street,  where  now  stand  lofty  skyscrapers 
and  edifices  of  steel  and  stone.  We  must  remember 
that  it  was  “Fort  Amsterdam’'  first,  instead  of  New 
Amsterdam,  in  Nova  Belgica,  and  that  America’s 
mighty  metropolis  is  an  evolution  from  a  fortress. 
In  February,  1653,  the  village  became  the  city  of 
New  Amsterdam. 

The  name  “  New  Amsterdam,”  as  the  seal  shows, 
was  not  in  common  use  until  1654.  The  Walloons 
often  spoke  of  the  Manhattan  settlement  as  “New 
Avesnes.”  De  Rasieres’  letter,  giving  us  his  first 
impression  of  the  new  Dutch  province,  its  land¬ 
marks,  its  waters,  its  general  features,  its  men  and 
women,  native  and  immigrant,  is  wonderfully  vivid. 

The  Walloon  secretary’s  second  visit  to  Plym¬ 
outh  resulted  in  the  introduction  to  New  England 
of  wampum,  or  Indian  shell  currency.  This  gave  the 
English  settlers  a  tremendous  pecuniary  advantage, 
helping  them,  by  making  trade  more  brisk  and  fac¬ 
ile,  to  pay  off  their  debts  and  gain  financial  inde¬ 
pendence.  In  the  English  colonies,  wampum  became 
the  standard  of  value  and  of  exchange,  remaining  so 
during  more  than  a  century. 

De  Rasieres’  letter  lay  in  the  national  archives 
at  The  Hague,  until  Dr.  Eckhof  of  Leyden  found, 

•178 


SECRETARY  ISAAC  DE  RASIERES 


retranslated,  and  published  it,  in  1919,  and  wrote 
a  biography  of  the  prosperous  secretary,  who  used 
French  and  Dutch  equally  well. 

What  were  the  chief  events  in  the  life  of  de  Ra- 
sieres?  Weknowthatin  1628  hewastoofat  to  be  fond 
of  a  long  walk,  as  Bradford  tells  us.  From  the  great 
“  Dutch  Biographical  Dictionary,”  vol.  V,  published 
in  December,  1921,  we  learn  that  de  Rasieres  was 
born  a  day  or  two  before  October  15,  1595,  at  Mid- 
delburg,  and  was  baptized  in  the  Reformed  Church. 
He  was  therefore  four  years  younger  than  Bradford, 
who,  even  more  than  his  Manhattan  correspondent 
and  visitor,  had  reason  to  remember  this  city,  the 
“old  home  of  freedom,”  —  and  of  many  Walloon 
refugees —  as  is  told  about  in  “  The  Young  People’s 
History  of  the  Pilgrims.”  Quite  possibly  de  Ra¬ 
sieres  used  to  know  Bradford,  the  Pilgrim  historian, 
at  Leyden,  as  well  as  in  Massachusetts.  The  secre¬ 
tary’s  father  was  Laurens  de  Rasieres,  most  prob¬ 
ably  a  Belgic  refugee,  and  the  way  of  his  fortune 
was  in  the  sea.  On  July  7,  1618,  Isaac’s  brother 
Abraham  was  supercargo  of  the  ship  Sea  Wolf. 

Isaac,  the  boy,  lost  his  mother,  and  in  1605  his 
father  married  again,  taking  as  his  bride  Anna  l’Her- 
mite,  of  Antwerp,  daughter  of  a  Walloon  mercantile 
family.  When,  in  1624,  Isaac  was  thirty  years  old 
and  then  unmarried,  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of 
Nova  Belgica.  He  sailed  in  the  ship  Arms  of  Am¬ 
sterdam  (Het  Wapen  van  Amsterdam),  and  arrived 
in  America  July  26,  1625.  He  was  present  officially 

179  / 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


with  Governor  Minuit,  on  September  23,  1626,  at 
the  purchase  of  Manhattan. 

According  to  the  requirements  of  the  West  India 
Company’s  charter,  which  definitely  stipulated  that 
the  natives  must  be  paid  for  the  land  which  any 
Dutch  colony  occupied,  Manhattan  —  meaning  a 
place  between  two  rivers  —  was  occupied  with  the 
good  will  of  the  natives.  They  were  satisfied,  not 
with  coin,  which  had  no  meaning  or  value  to  the  In¬ 
dian,  but  with  articles  of  use  and  adornment,  such  as 
knives  and  beads,  of  which  they  were  delighted  to 
get  possession.  Subsequent  history  also  showed  that 
in  the  minds  of  the  natives  the  northern  half,  beyond 
the  fort  and  farms,  was  not  included  in  the  sale,  as 
is  told,  in  detail,  in  Riker’s  admirable  “  History  of 
Harlem.” 

Evidently  Isaac  made  several  voyages  over  the 
Atlantic  to  North  and  South  America.  He  returned 
to  Holland  and  in  1633  he  courted  and  led  to  the  al¬ 
tar  in  marriage,  Eva  Bartels,  a  young  lady  twenty- 
four  years  of  age,  niece  of  the  Walloon  Jean  Raye, 
one  of  the  West  India  Company’s  officers.  The  wed¬ 
ding  was  in  the  French  or  Walloon  church,  and 
registry  was  duly  made  for  the  city  archives. 

On  this  occasion,  as  at  all  weddings  in  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  there  was  gathered  a  collection  for  the  poor. 
It  was  even  a  part  of  the  covenant  between  man  and 
wife,  as  set  down  in  the  ritual,  as  the  writer  knows, 
from  long  use  of  the  Netherlands  Marriage  Form.  A 
bride  in  the  old  or  in  the  new  Belgica  hardly  felt  that 

180 


SECRETARY  ISAAC  DE  RASIERES 


she  was  married,  unless  she  heard  the  coin  jingle  for 
others. 

Not  liking  to  serve  under  the  blunderer,  Wouter 
Van  Twiller,  “by  merit  raised  to  that  bad  emi¬ 
nence”  of  folly  —  the  same  of  whom  Washington 
Irving  makes  so  much  deserved  fun  —  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Isaac  de  Rasieres  made  “a  hazard  of  new  for¬ 
tune”  by  going  to  Brazil,  where  her  family  was 
in  the  profitable  sugar  business.  In  those  days,  a 
Dutchman  could  get  rich  much  more  quickly  in 
South,  than  in  North  America.  Yet  on  the  sea,  busi¬ 
ness  between  the  Netherlanders  and  the  Portuguese 
was  as  much  a  matter  of  fighting  as  of  trading.  “  Bills 
of  exchange,”  in  those  days,  were  likely  to  be  in  the 
form  of  cannon  balls;  for  the  Iberian  nations,  to 
which  a  papal  bull  had  given  the  two  halves  of  the 
“heathen”  world  for  an  inheritance,  still  clung  to 
the  idea  of  the  infallibility  of  the  edicts  issued  from 
the  city  on  the  Tiber,  at  which  the  Dutch  scoffed. 

In  South  America  sons  were  born  to  him.  Laurens 
de  Rasieres  was  named  after  the  boy-baby’s  grand¬ 
father.  He  saw  the  light  in  1636,  was  baptized  April 
19,  but  died  in  1641.  In  1639,  a  second  son  took  his 
name,  Isaac,  from  his  father.  To  his  third  son  was 
given  the  name  of  Laurens. 

Prosperity  followed  the  ex-secretary  of  Nova  Bel- 
gica,  for  he  owned  three  sugar  mills,  to  which  he 
gave  the  names  “Amstel,”  “Middelburg,”  and  “the 
Rasieres.”  In  1651  and  1654  he  was  living  in  Hol¬ 
land,  doubtless  enjoying  his  fortune  made  in  sugar. 

181 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Later,  we  find  him  visiting  Barbados,  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  here  his  son  Laurens  married  Aletta  van 
Hontum.  Of  this  couple,  bride  and  groom  (“bei- 
der,”  or  both  together),  the  portrait  was  painted,  at 
Brussels,  by  the  great  artist  Nicholas  Maes.  The 
family  tradition  is  that  Isaac  was  also  governor  of 
Tabago,  which  is  fifteen  miles  from  the  Panama 
Canal  zone.  All  this  we  know  from  Dr.  Eckhof’s 
researches  published  in  1919. 

With  William  Bradford  and  some  wise  men,  we 
believe  that  “letters  are  the  best  part  of  history.’ 1 
Certainly,  in  place  of  the  long  speeches  which 
most  ancient  and  some  modern  historians  put  in 
the  mouths  of  the  characters  described  by  them, 
we  should  rather  have  from  “all  the  hands  that 
wrought”  the  missives  which  they  penned.  Would 
that  there  had  been,  in  earliest  colonial  days,  more 
writers  of  what  the  French  call  in  painting  genre , 
that  is,  not  of  history,  landscape,  theology,  or  eco¬ 
nomics,  but  of  human  incidents,  events  and  affairs; 
and  that  their  penwork  were  still  extant!  Such 
survivals  would  save  us  from  many  of  the  later  mon¬ 
strosities  of  partisanship,  which  both  deface  and 
defile  the  fair  visage  of  truth,  in  what  is  called 
most  unworthily  “history.”  Nor  would  we  so  often 
read  into  the  records  of  centuries  ago  the  ideas  cur¬ 
rent  in  our  own  times. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
FOOD  FOR  THE  SOUL 


In  Nova  Belgica,  though  their  feet  were  set  on  the 
new  continent,  the  Walloon  Christians  at  first  had 
no  church  of  their  own.  Yet  there  was  daily  food  for 
the  soul,  in  family  worship,  instruction  in  the  cate¬ 
chism,  prayer  and  song  in  the  household,  for  in  their 
faith  they  laid  emphasis  on  religion  in  the  home. 
The  very  essence  of  the  Calvinistic  form  of  religion 
lies  in  instruction  and  actual  experience.  As  in 
chemistry  the  “ nascent”  moment  of  the  release  of 
an  element  is  the  most  potent,  so  is  it  also  in  church 
history.  Catechizing  means  teaching,  by  word  of 
mouth,  through  question  and  answer,  the  great 
truths  of  faith  and  duty,  in  a  simple  form  suitable 
for  young  people. 

So  also  to-day,  the  missionary  of  Reformed  reli¬ 
gion,  in  teaching  the  good  news  of  God  —  the  mes¬ 
sage  of  love  from  our  Father  in  Heaven  —  begins  at 
once  to  translate  the  Bible  into  the  language  of  the 
people,  thus  making  both  allegiance  to  the  Founder 
and  the  active  exercise  of  faith  and  reason  a  supreme 
duty  and  a  joy.  In  other  forms  of  propagation,  the 
method  is  by  pictures,  crosses,  medals,  or  other  sym¬ 
bols,  while  allegiance  to  the  Church  is  insisted  upon 
as  peremptory  and  supreme.  The  former  process 
goes  to  the  roots  of  life  and  rebuilds  a  nation.  On  the 

183 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


“ ‘foreign”  field,  the  second  method  does  not  greatly 
disturb  the  old  order  of  things.  It  is  the  religion  of 
reality,  more  than  of  symbols,  and  even  more  than 
wars  and  bloodshed,  trade  and  commerce,  that  has 
recreated  Japan,  China,  and  the  other  nations  of 
Asia. 

Such  was  the  law  and  custom  in  the  early  primi¬ 
tive  Church.  When,  however,  religion  became  a  sys¬ 
tem  of  symbols,  ritual,  autocracy  and  a  political  en¬ 
gine,  with  power  centralized  at  one  place,  with  one 
bishop,  the  catechizing  or  teaching  of  children  was 
gradually  and  in  large  measure  given  up,  the  rite  of 
confirmation  taking  its  place.  Instead  of  brother¬ 
hood,  democracy,  and  personal  inward  experience, 
there  were  imposed  the  outward  clamps  of  authority. 

In  other  words,  the  power  of  the  individual  and 
the  family  was  taken  away  and  put  into  the  hands  of 
a  caste,  or  corporation,  which  could  control  all  hu¬ 
man  life,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  The  old 
apostolic  declarations,  “ye  are  a  royal  priesthood,” 
and  that  the  “elders”  of  the  church  at  Ephesus  were 
also  “bishops,”  were  ignored.  Instead  of  systematic, 
intelligent  moral  training,  there  were  confirmations, 
and  instead  of  an  inward  change,  pretty  dresses, 
chaplets  of  flowers,  “first  communion”  celebrations 
by  children  in  only  “one  kind,”  that  is,  bread  soaked 
in  wine,  which  was  given  from  the  hands  of  a  priest, 
in  place  of,  as  in  earlier  days  —  before  the  clerical 
caste  was  formed  —  all  being  equal  at  one  table. 
These  were  but  a  few  of  the  many  changes  from 

184 


n 


m 


■ 


«  t  im  felt?  o  m  t  mm  p  s 
?o  r^itiiT.uwtlt.R'^inTi 

stilt  fiHtoHsKrtfcmfc  iSI-itsl 


*  Y-: 


. 


>:♦ 


■ 


%  ■ 


TABLET  ON  THE  LAW  SCHOOL  OF  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY,  WASH¬ 
INGTON  SQUARE,  NEW  YORK,  IN  HONOR  OF  THE  DUTCH  AND 
WALLOON  TEACHERS  IN  NOVA  BELGICA,  OR  NEW  NETHERLAND 

Erected,  1909 


I 


FOOD  FOR  THE  SOUL 


early  Christianity,  which  the  Reformed  thought  un¬ 
warrantable. 

All  Christian  catechisms  are  and  must  be  based, 
first  of  all,  upon  the  Ten  Commandments  —  the 
moral  law;  the  Lord’s  Prayer  —  center  of  all  devo¬ 
tions;  and  then,  more  or  less,  on  the  so-called 
“ Apostles’  Creed”;  or,  as  the  Walloons  and  Dutch 
called  it,  “The  Twelve  Articles  of  the  Christian 
Faith.”  This  last  is  theology,  that  is,  the  adjustment 
of  what  men  know  to  what  they  believe;  or,  in  the 
many  changes  of  meaning  which  words  undergo,  the 
harmony  of  what  men  believe  with  what  they  say 
they  know,  or  at  least  apprehend. 

Of  all  catechisms  made  at  the  time  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  or  later,  that  of  Luther  is  the  simplest  and  best 
fitted  for  a  child.  Yet  it  has  the  grave  defect  of  fol¬ 
lowing  the  Roman  plan  of  omitting  the  second  com¬ 
mandment  and  splitting  the  tenth  into  two  parts. 
Instead  of  the  phrase  “The  Holy  Catholic  Church” 
is  substituted  “The  Holy  Christian  Church.” 

Calvin’s  catechism  is  fuller  and  more  logical  than 
Luther’s,  but  is  not  so  well  fitted  for  the  minds  of 
children.  Hence,  in  time,  it  was  superseded  by  the 
Heidelberg  and  Westminster  Catechisms  and  other 
forms  of  statements  of  Christian  belief,  put  in 
question  and  answer.  Yet  for  a  long  time  Calvin’s 
catechism  was  the  only  one  used  in  the  Walloon 
churches.  In  fact,  this  was  decided  upon  at  the 
Synod  of  Wesel  in  1568.  At  the  very  time  when 
the  Spaniard  in  the  Netherlands  was  imitating  the 

185 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Turk,  in  his  method  of  propagating  religion  by  fire 
and  sword,  the  Reformed  Walloons  at  Wesel  made 
choice  of  both  the  gospel  and  the  method  of  the 
Founder;  that  is,  by  spiritual  instruction.  This  also 
meant  reality  in  place  of  symbols;  or,  personal  ex¬ 
perience  in  the  individual  soul,  instead  of  the  mere 
fiat  of  authority. 

One  notable  fact  is,  that  at  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Reformation,  the  great  men  and  teachers 
thought  it  worth  while  to  devote  their  time,  talents, 
and  care  to  the  children  and  without  regard  to  sex. 
In  this,  Christianity  differs,  by  a  mighty  contrast, 
from  the  other  great  religions  of  the  Buddha  and  of 
Mahomet.  One  has  only  to  read  the  Koran  and 
“The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,”  to  see  these 
religions  in  action  and  to  discern  this  clearly. 
Among  the  oldest  of  Christian  paintings  in  the  cata¬ 
combs  of  Rome  is  that  of  the  Good  Shepherd  bear¬ 
ing  a  lamb  on  his  shoulders.  One  of  the  initial  hymns 
of  the  Christian  Church,  as  translated  by  Henry 
M.  Dexter,  begins,  “Shepherd  of  tender  youth.” 

In  the  American  wilderness,  the  Walloons,  tired  of 
fighting  wild  beasts  in  the  spiritual  Ephesus  of  Eu¬ 
rope,  found  nothing  worse  in  their  new  environment. 
For,  until  stirred  up  by  political  and  religious  hatred 
emanating  from  French  Canada,  or  maddened  by 
the  white  man’s  poisons  or  aggressions,  the  Indians 
were  friendly.  Though  Nature  confronted  them 
with  perils,  she  offered  also  allurements  and  rewards. 

For  “provisions  to  sustain  the  mind”  and  feed 

186 


FOOD  FOR  THE  SOUL 


their  souls,  they  had  their  precentor,  who  led  the 
song  and  who  read  sermons.  The  beautiful  liturgy 
of  the  Reformed  Church  was  used  then,  more  than 
in  later  years,  when  the  sermon  occupied  so  large  a 
place  and  so  long  a  time  in  the  service.  There  was 
also  the  Visitor,  or  Comforter  of  the  Sick,  who  came 
with  consolation  to  the  needy  with  the  passages  of 
scripture  already  selected  —  a  form  of  service  orig¬ 
inally  prepared  by  Caspar  van  der  Heyden,  at  the 
Synod  of  Embden  in  1571.  It  was  this  form  of  con¬ 
solation  that  the  great  John  of  Barne veldt  had  read 
to  him,  just  before  being  led  to  execution,  declar¬ 
ing  that  in  this  confession  of  faith  he  was  willing 
to  die. 

At  every  morning  worship,  the  Ten  Command¬ 
ments  were  read  either  by  the  Lector  or  by  the  pas¬ 
tor,  and  usually  commented  upon.  There  was  no 
idea  in  the  Huguenot  mind  of  formality,  mere  rou¬ 
tine,  or  custom  in  partaking  of  holy  communion. 
There  must  be  preparation  and  searching  of  heart, 
as  to  whether  the  guests  at  the  Lord’s  Table,  be¬ 
sides  “being  received  in  mercy,”  were  accounted 
“worthy  partakers  of  this  heavenly  meat  and 
drink.”  In  a  word,  the  preponderant  idea  was  ethi¬ 
cal  and  spiritual,  rather  than  mere  adherence  to 
church  rules. 

Yet  on  the  whole,  as  centuries  slipped  by  and  per¬ 
secution  was  but  a  memory,  the  tendency  in  the  Re¬ 
formed  churches  was  from  the  old  “  congregational- 
ity”  to  “ministeriality.”  The  Domine  attained  a 

187 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


disproportionate  importance,  while  the  individual 
church  member  was  too  much  inclined  to  excuse 
himself  and  let  the  parson  do  the  work.  In  time,  the 
reformed  needed  reforming,  for  the  springs  dried 
up,  and,  on  “  the  principle  of  the  crust,”  religious  life 
became  too  much  an  outward  matter  of  routine.  So 
forth  came  the  “ Quakers,”  the  “Methodists,”  the 
“New  Lights,”  and  others,  whose  stigma  was,  in  the 
end,  glorious,  and  whose  nicknames  turned  to  titles 
of  honor. 

The  pioneer  Walloons  in  Nova  Belgica  did  not 
have  to  wait  many  years  for  a  pastor.  When  he 
came,  in  1628,  the  first  completely  organized  church 
in  America  took  its  being  on  Manhattan.  The  Dom- 
ine,  that  is,  a  pastor  with  authority,  not  a  “domi¬ 
nie  ”  —  which  is  a  Scotch  title,  meaning  a  schoolmas¬ 
ter —  was  the  Reverend  Jonas  Michaelius.  Bom  in 
1577,  he  was  a  graduate  of  Leyden  University,  in  the 
class  that  matriculated  September  6,  1600.  At  least 
the  name  of  Joannes  Michaelius  is  in  the  list  for  that 
year.  It  is  most  probable  that  in  his  college  days 
he  knew,  in  Leyden,  some  of  those  Walloons  who 
later,  in  1623,  emigrated  to  America.  Michaelius 
married  in  1612.  After  Christian  work  in  the  Dutch 
colony  in  Brazil,  he  returned  to  Holland  in  1627. 
Entering  the  service  of  the  West  India  Company, 
he  sailed  out  of  the  Texel,  with  his  wife  and  three 
children,  for  America. 

The  two  letters  of  Michaelius  sent  home  from 
Manhattan  are  among  the  most  graphic  and  de- 

188 


FOOD  FOR  THE  SOUL 


tailed  sources  of  authority  for  the  earliest  history  of 
the  pioneers  and  founders  of  the  Empire  State.  Af¬ 
ter  seven  weeks  in  their  new  American  home,  his 
children  were  left  motherless  by  the  decease  of  his 
wife,  in  June,  1628.  How  pathetic  those  first  graves 
of  Christian  exiles  at  Plymouth  and  on  Manhat¬ 
tan! 

Michselius  formed  inside  the  fort  the  mother 
church,  which  is  now  housed  in  two  edifices,  the  one 
on  Fifth  Avenue  at  Twenty-ninth  Street  and  the 
other  at  Forty-seventh  Street,  with  many  daughters 
all  united  under  one  Collegiate  body,  or  Consistory. 
Fifty  communicants  sat  down  to  the  Eucharist,  and 
Michaelius  read  the  tender  and  beautiful  words  of 
the  “Form  Preparatory  to  the  Lord’s  Supper, ” 
which  came  from  the  pen  of  John  Calvin.  In  the 
congregation  were  many  Walloons,  and  the  two 
church  elders  in  the  Consistory  were  Governor  Peter 
Minuit  and  Jan  Huyghens,  both  refugees  from  Wesel. 
As  only  certain  ones  of  the  older  Walloons  could 
speak  or  understand  a  formal  discourse  in  Dutch,  the 
Domine  preached  also  in  French,  writing  out  his  ser¬ 
mons  in  that  language,  so  as  to  be  exact  in  pronun¬ 
ciation  and  style.  For  centuries  a  majority  of  Dutch 
domines  spoke  more  than  one  language  and  read 
several  of  them. 

In  1628,  this  widower  went  back  in  the  ship  Een- 
draght  (Unity)  to  Patria,  as  the  home  land  was 
called,  for  the  education  of  his  daughters.  The 
Dutch  Republic  then  led  the  world  in  the  education 

189 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


of  women,  for  the  elementary  schools  sustained  by 
taxation  were  open  to  girls,  as  well  as  boys,  as  were 
also  the  schools  in  New  Netherland  —  which  colony 
was  the  pioneer  in  the  United  States  as  champion  of 
the  education  of  women.  The  records  in  Albany 
show  that  probably  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the 
Netherlands  women  could  write  their  own  names, 
which  was  far  from  being  the  case  in  the  other  col¬ 
onies.  The  biography  of  Michaelius,  so  far  as  it  is 
known,  that  is,  to  the  year  1638,  is  given  by  Dr.  Eck- 
hof,  in  the  great  “National  Dutch  Dictionary  of 
Biography”  now  in  course  of  publication.  His 
record  ends  with  the  year  1638,  for  the  archives  of 
the  town,  in  which  he  later  lived,  perished  some 
years  ago  in  fire. 

Serving  the  twenty-nine  Reformed  churches  in 
New  Netherland,  from  1628  to  1700,  were  thirty- 
three  ministers,  most  of  them  Dutch,  the  large  ma¬ 
jority  being  graduates  of  universities  and  able  to 
preach  in  French.  Of  the  total  number,  however,  at 
least  a  half  dozen  were,  by  birth,  Walloons,  or,  later, 
from  France.  Four  of  them  officiated  regularly  in 
that  language,  going  from  church  to  church,  as  their 
services  were  needed;  especially  on  Manhattan, 
Staten  and  Long  Islands,  and  at  Esopus,  New  Paltz, 
Wiltwick,  Rondout,  Schenectady,  Kingston,  and 
New  Rochelle. 

Several  of  the  domines  were  learned  in  one  or 
more  of  the  Indian  dialects,  both  Iroquois  and  Al¬ 
gonquin,  and  did  noble  Christian  work  among  the 

190 


FOOD  FOR  THE  SOUL 


savages,  in  some  cases  gathering  the  Indian  children 
into  classes.  In  the  records  of  the  church  on  the 
frontier,  at  Schenectady,  the  writer  counted  up 
the  names  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifteen  Indian 
pupils  or  converts. 


CHAPTER  XX 
RICH  FARMS  ON  MANHATTAN 


From  the  Dutch  map  of  Manhattan  by  Vingboom, 
1624-39,  translated  and  annotated  by  Mr.  Dingman 
Versteeg  and  compiled  and  published  by  Mr.  Ed¬ 
ward  Van  Winkel,  in  1916,  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
prosperity  of  the  Walloons  on  Manhattan 

From  the  first  a  distinction  was  made  between  a 
“bouwerie”  or  farm  (i.e.,  improved  land,  with  build¬ 
ings)  and  a  “plantation.”  On  the  rough  land,  even 
while  still  virgin  forest,  one  could  raise  corn  and  to¬ 
bacco,  the  latter  being  one  of  the  first  gifts  made  to 
the  Nova  Belgicans  by  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth. 

For  the  grain,  fruit,  and  vegetables  brought 
from  Europe,  more  carefully  tilled  land,  even  that 
ploughed  and  harrowed,  was  necessary,  It  was  pos¬ 
sible  to  go  into  the  woods,  plant  corn  or  tobacco 
in  the  shade,  and  then,  by  “girdling”  the  trees,  to 
make  the  leaves  quickly  wilt.  This  let  in  enough 
sunshine  to  ripen  the  maize  during  the  hot  summer. 
Such  a  “clearing”  or  “slashing”  was  a  plantation. 
The  fields  under  cultivation  made  farms.  In  like 
manner,  a  new  settlement,  in  its  beginning,  when 
men  lived  in  bark  houses,  was  a  “concentration,” 
but  a  more  mature  collection  of  people  with  houses 
was  a  “colony.” 

,  Bouwerie  No.  1  was  occupied  by  Governor  Mi- 

192 


RICH  FARMS  ON  MANHATTAN 


nuit,  when  the  colony  consisted  of  but  two  hundred 
souls.  His  survey  showed  that  the  island  was  about 
twenty-two  hundred  acres  in  area.  His  imposing 
house  was  on  Deutel  Kill  (wedge,  or  bung  creek) 
near  the  East  River.  This  one,  with  a  score  or  more 
of  “kills, ”  or  streams,  has  long  ago  been  filled  up. 
Quite  early,  but  more  generally  by  the  English  after 
1664,  the  distinction  was  made  between  “  Manhattan 
Island* ’  and  “the  Island  of  Manhattan,’ *  as  two 
districts,  divided  by  a  stream  long  since  canalized 
first,  and  then  forgotten. 

Bouwerie  No.  3  was  occupied  by  the  Walloon, 
Gerrit  Theusz  de  Reux  (de  Reus).  Engaged  as  a 
farmer  by  Kilian  Van  Rensselaer,  he  had  come  over 
with  four  laborers  in  the  ship  Salt  Mountain,  to  es¬ 
tablish  a  farm  on  Blommaert’s  Kill,  on  de  Laet’s  Is¬ 
land  (near  Albany)  June  15,  1632.  This  island  was 
named  after  the  great  editor  and  historian  John  de 
Laet,  whose  daughter  and  a  son-in-law  were  at  Be- 
verwyck,  or  Rensselaerwick.  As  a  justice  of  the  peace, 
de  Reus  was  presented  by  Van  Rensselaer,  the  pa- 
troon,  with  a  black  hat  having  a  silver  band.  During 
his  absence  from  Manhattan,  the  farm  was  managed 
by  another  Walloon,  Jehan  Ides.  De  Reus  returned 
to  Holland  in  1634  and  died  in  1639. 

The  first  schout  for  Van  Rensselaer  was  Rutger 
Hendrixsen  van  Soest,  who  was  presented  with  a  sil¬ 
ver-plated  rapier,  with  a  baldric  and  a  black  hat 
with  a  plume,  his  station  being  one  official  step 
higher  than  that  of  de  Reux. 

193 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


The  plantation  of  Jan  Lampo,  who  was  schout- 
fischal  —  “a  sort  of  attorney-general”  —  who  came 
from  Cautel  in  Auvergne,  France,  was  on  Farm  No.  8. 
For  three  years  Isaac  de  Rasieres  lived  with  him. 

io.  Governor  Wouter  Van  Twiller,  who  arrived  in 
April,  1633,  had  a  tobacco  farm.  His  house  was 
probably  the  first  erected  north  of  Canal  Street. 

12.  This  was  the  plantation  of  another  Walloon, 
Mr.  Lesle  de  Neve  Sinx. 

Farm  No.  19,  of  about  two  hundred  acres,  was 
owned  by  Loen  Ontangle  (Jean  de  la  Montayne) 
born  in  Leyden  and  a  student  in  the  university  there, 
husband  of  Rachel  de  Forest,  the  daughter  of  “the 
founder,”  Jesse  de  Forest.  Originally  called  Mus- 
coota,  this  piece  of  land  was  chosen  by  Henry  de 
Forest,  in  April,  1637,  in  a  grant  from  Wouter  Van 
Twiller.  It  lay  “  between  the  hills  and  the  kill,”  that 
is,  from  Morningside  Heights  to  Harlem  Creek, 
which  rose  near  Mount  Morris  Park  and  emptied 
into  the  Harlem  River.  The  northern  boundary  was 
at  124th  Street  and  the  southern  at  109th  Street. 
Henry  de  Forest  died  childless,  July  26,  1637,  and  de 
la  Montayne  completed  the  buildings.  The  spring 
on  this  farm,  still  living  and  flowing,  was  long  known 
as  Montayne’s  Fountain,  and  the  bouwerie  was 
called  Vredendal,  or  Peacedale.  In  Riker’s  “  History 
of  Harlem”  and  in  Mrs.  de  Forest’s  “A  Walloon 
Family  in  America,”  we  have  pretty  full  descriptions 
of  this  part  of  Manhattan. 

37  and  38.  Vingboom,  the  map-maker,  accredits 

.194 


RICH  FARMS  ON  MANHATTAN 


four  plantations  to  “Gegoergesyn.”  On  June  16, 
1637,  Joris  Jansen  Rapalje,  who  had  first,  in  1628, 
settled  on  the  site  of  Albany,  obtained  a  patent  for 
his  farm  at  the  Wallabout  in  Brooklyn.  His  baby 
Sara,  born  June  9,  1625,  was  the  first  Christian 
daughter  born  in  New  Netherland  —  according  to 
her  declaration,  on  April  4,  1656.  To-day  the  East 
Brooklyn  Savings  Bank  in  Brooklyn  occupies  the 
site. 

The  horse  mill  inside  the  fort,  in  the  upper  story 
of  which  divine  worship  was  held  on  Sundays,  was 
built  in  1627,  by  the  Walloon,  Frangois  Molemae- 
cher.  The  old  millstones  are  still  preserved  and  have 
been  photographed  by  a  descendant  of  Krol,  the  fa¬ 
mous  all-around  worthy.  This  lover  of  true  history, 
Mr.  William  Brewer,  has  reared  also  a  fitting  memo¬ 
rial  in  the  Reformed  Church  on  Second  Avenue. 

The  larger  grain  or  grist  mill,  outside  the  fort,  fin¬ 
ished  in  1626,  in  the  year  of  Minuit’s  arrival,  stood 
on  a  knoll.  To  the  settlers  it  must  have  been  home¬ 
like  to  see  its  great  sails  fluttering  and  its  arms  re¬ 
volving.  As  was  the  custom  from  time  immemorial, 
the  occasion  of  completion  was  one  marked  with 
ceremonies  and  good  cheer.  No  doubt  the  sight  of 
a  windmill  softened  the  smart  of  homesickness,  for 
now  the  landscape  began  to  look  more  like  that  of 
the  old  country;  while  the  canal,  soon  to  be  dug  and 
embanked,  added  to  the  pleasing  illusion.  The  prov¬ 
ince  of  Holland  and  the  place  of  the  Walloons’  last 
home  was  already  famous  for  its  artificial  waterways, 

195 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


but  Hainault  in  Belgic  Land  did  not  receive  its  net¬ 
work  of  canals  until  long  after  the  Huguenot  Wal¬ 
loons  had  left  it,  nor  until  hard  fuel  had  been  discov¬ 
ered  beneath  the  ancient  Coal  Forest  and  utilized. 

39.  Claes  Carstenz  Norman  had  a  farm  on  Long 
Island,  just  north  of  the  Wallabout.  In  March,  1647, 
he  received  a  patent  for  land  on  the  west  side  of  the 
Hudson  River.  With  Dirck  Jansen  Dey,  he  was  the 
first  known  settler  of  Bayonne  in  New  Jersey,  though 
the  name  of  the  city  came  from  a  later  French 
Huguenot. 

40.  Dieryck  the  Norman,  or  Dirck  Volkerson,  had 
this  farm  in  1639.  His  house  and  lot  were  on  Man¬ 
hattan,  but  he  farmed  on  Long  Island. 

The  frequency  of  the  name  or  designation  of  a 
man  as  “Norman,”  “Dane,”  “Swede,”  “Norwe¬ 
gian,”  or  “Scandinavian”  in  general  recalls  the  po¬ 
litical  situation  of  Europe.  Largely  through  the  ac¬ 
tivities  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  in  the  Thirty  Years* 
War,  many  natives  of  the  northern  countries,  adven¬ 
turers,  soldiers,  etc.,  were  in  the  Netherlands  ready 
for  a  “hazard  of  new  fortunes.**  Thousands  of  Wal¬ 
loons  had  fled  to  Denmark  and  Sweden  and  thence 
came  to  America,  with  the  aid  of  the  Dutch  West 
India  Company.  Some  of  the  most  enterprising  of 
the  New  Netherland  and  New  England  pioneers 
were  Normans  of  Scandinavian  descent. 

Interesting  documents  show  how  liberally  the 
Manhattanese  were  provided  for,  in  the  way  of  cat¬ 
tle,  sheep,  and  horses  —  which  were  brought  over 

196 


RICH  FARMS  ON  MANHATTAN 


first  in  1625.  The  list  of  1630  shows  on  the  Minuit 
farm  twenty-eight,  in  all,  of  mares,  stallions,  and 
cows,  besides  fourteen  sheep.  On  that  of  Gerrit  de 
Reux  were  twenty. 

When  the  later  ships  of  the  West  India  Company 
came  over,  laden  largely  with  Walloons,  as  well  as 
with  Flemings  and  Dutch  folks,  the  reinforcement  to 
farm  and  house  life  was  notable.  In  the  models  and 
structures  of  the  average  house  of  fairly  well-to-do 
people,  those  of  the  old  country  were  followed.  It  is 
true  that  in  many  cases,  one  prolonged  roof  covered 
both  the  human  habitation  and  that  of  the  shelter 
for  the  cows.  The  animals  yielding  daily  tribute  of 
nourishment  for  men  were  treated  in  a  measure  as 
fellow  beings,  worthy  of  constant  care,  while  the  vir¬ 
tue  which  is  next  to  godliness  was  supreme. 

One  notable  feature,  more  common  in  feudal  days, 
but  made  effective  on  the  American  frontier,  was  the 
“ overhang”  of  the  first  story.  By  this,  in  case  of  In¬ 
dian  attack,  the  dwelling  was  made  into  a  fort  for  the 
protection  of  the  garrison.  Those  within  could  fire 
on  their  enemies  below,  or  throw  water  upon  the 
blazing  arrow,  or  hay-laden  cart,  which,  when  cap¬ 
tured  from  the  barn  by  the  savages,  was  set  on  fire 
and  pushed  up  to  the  walls  or  door.  Even  in  the 
writer’s  lifetime,  many  of  these  homely  structures, 
thus  equipped  for  efficient  defense,  were  still  stand¬ 
ing  in  the  Mohawk  Valley. 

Neither  to  glorify  fact,  nor  to  transfigure  tradi¬ 
tion,  but  to  state  reality,  from  study,  sight,  and  ex- 

197 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


perience  —  and  who  knows  human  nature  better 
than  the  pastor?  —  the  best  gift  brought  to  the  mak¬ 
ing  of  the  American  nation  was  the  character  of 
these  people,  as  mellowed  by  persecution  and  exile. 
The  orator  in  the  forum  or  preacher  in  the  pulpit 
may  be  well  acquainted  with  human  nature  from 
books,  but  the  shepherd  of  a  flock  —  not  sitting  at  a 
confessional,  but  familiar  with  the  welcome  and  at¬ 
mosphere  of  homes  —  knows  beating  hearts  and  in¬ 
ner  lives.  In  our  earlier  American  life,  Walloon  and 
Huguenot  may  have  been  but  as  lumps  in  the  cup ; 
yet  though  the  form  is  lost,  the  sweetness  abides. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 

Well  named  and  of  happy  omen  were  the  two  is¬ 
lands  named  “ Staten”  or  the  States  —  the  one  in 
North  America  and  the  other  at  the  tip  end  of  the 
continent  on  Tierra  del  Fuego.  Both  of  them  were 
first  discerned  and  given  place  on  the  world’s  maps 
by  daring  explorers  sent  out  by  the  free  Republic, 
that  had  triumphed  over  the  despotism  of  Spain  — 
the  one  in  1609  by  the  discoverer  of  New  York’s  no¬ 
blest  river;  the  other  in  1615  by  skipper  William 
Cornelis  Schouten,  a  native  of  Hoorn,  in  North  Hol¬ 
land,  and  co-worker  with  the  Walloon  Lemaire. 

Both  these  ships  had  been  sent  out  by  Europe’s 
foremost  men  of  science.  Both  represented  the 
forces  of  a  new  age  —  the  age  of  public  schools,  free 
printing-presses,  a  higher  position  for  women,  and 
the  right  of  man  to  govern  himself  in  soul  as  well  as 
body.  These  ships  were  the  embodiments  afloat  of 
the  law  and  order  of  freedom,  as  against  despotism. 
They  were  harbingers  of  a  better  era  in  the  world’s 
history.  They  sailed  into  a  new  age  of  human  prog¬ 
ress. 

Both  islands  were  named  in  honor  of  the  federal 
union  of  seven  states  —  prototype  of  the  larger 
American  Commonwealth  beyond  the  Atlantic,  that 
was  to  extend  from  ocean  to  ocean. 


199/ 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Hudson’s  ship,  besides  bearing  in  its  name  the 
token  of  victory  and  success,  the  silver  Half  Moon, 
foreshadowed,  in  the  very  composition  of  its  crew, 
the  union  of  two  great  peoples  in  the  making  of  the 
future  United  States  of  America.  The  captain,  mate, 
and  one  half  of  the  sailors  were  English,  the  other 
half  being  Dutch.  In  the  evolution  of  the  American 
Commonwealth,  which,  until  1791,  consisted  of  but 
thirteen  States,  the  Britons  and  the  Netherlanders 
led  and  wrought  together,  while  the  Northern,  the 
Central,  and  the  Southern  colonies  were  becoming 
one  organism. 

Staten,  the  sentinel  at  the  gateway  of  a  continent, 
has  been  called  Huguenot  Island,  because  so  many 
of  these  people,  with  consciences  that  were  not  in 
the  market,  made  their  homes  on  its  soil.  Not  a  few 
local  names,  to  this  day,  are  the  outstanding  proofs 
and  telltale  witnesses  of  occupation,  first  by  the  Bel- 
gic  and  later  the  French  Huguenots. 

Even  from  the  initial  ship,  the  New  Netherland, 
of  1624,  some  Walloons  began  their  fortunes  here, 
but  they  were  few  and  not  long  was  their  abiding  on 
the  island.  The  Indians  seemed  implacable,  and  on 
account  of  the  red  men’s  menace,  the  earliest  white 
pioneers  were  summoned  to  the  “concentration,”  as 
the  term  was,  on  Manhattan;  though  later,  some 
came  back  to  suffer  yet  again  in  tempting  fortune. 

Were  we  to  tell  in  detail  this  island’s  history,  we 
should  truthfully  picture  to  ourselves  not  one  ship, 
of  name  and  record,  like  the  New  Netherland,  bear- 


200 


THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 


mg  the  Walloons  to  America,  but  rather  the  cata¬ 
logue  of  a  fleet.  These  vessels,  from  1624  even  to  the 
great  occultation  of  their  story  by  the  more  numer¬ 
ous  Huguenots  from  France,  came  laden  with  eager 
refugees.  These  made  homes,  we  know  not  how 
many,  upon  the  flats  and  hills  of  the  Island  of  the 
States.  These  Belgic  Walloons  of  1624  were  pioneers 
and  pilots  of  the  French  Huguenots  who  came  nu¬ 
merously  after  1685.  They,  like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
were  forerunners  of  the  larger  (Puritan)  immigra¬ 
tion. 

It  is  after  the  Revocation  that  the  names  of 
Chaille,  Duche  Pintard,  Chadaine,  Bodine,  Depew, 
Mersereau,  Boudin,  La  Conte,  Disosway,  and 
scores  of  other  families  of  the  same  speech  and  faith 
are  found.  Many  of  their  descendants,  bearing 
those  honorable  and  honored  patronymics,  are  still 
among  us,  doing  the  world’s  work.  Not  a  few  stand 
high  on  the  rolls  of  fame.  Among  the  inscriptions  in 
the  cemeteries,  one  can  read  of  many  more  that  in 
ability  or  achievement  rose  above  the  average  com¬ 
moner.  On  the  church  rolls,  however,  is  the  larger 
number  preserved  and  recognizable. 

There  are  also  deserted  and  forgotten  graveyards, 
in  which  the  unnamed  sleep.  Too  frequently,  the 
lone  private  and  family  God’s  Acres  have  been 
ploughed  over,  and  the  dust  of  those  once  above 
ground  rests  under  edifices,  highways,  or  harvests. 
This  is  also  true  of  Schenectady,  where  in  the  open 
space  at  the  junction  of  streets  with  names  of  what 


201 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


in  the  Middle  Colonies  were  never  politically  joined 
—  “Church”  and  “State”  —  lie  the  unnamed. 
Rightly  did  the  latter  thoroughfare,  leading  to  Al¬ 
bany,  long  bear  the  name  of  the  Street  of  the  Mar¬ 
tyrs,  because  the  Dutch  and  Walloons,  slaughtered 
in  the  massacre  of  February  9,  1690,  were  the  vic¬ 
tims  of  sectarian  hate  at  the  hands  of  Frenchmen 
and  savages  who  served  the  despot  Louis  XIV.  The 
favor-seeking  letter  from  the  leader  of  the  raid,  de¬ 
scriptive  of  the  massacre,  was  addressed  to  the  mis¬ 
tress  of  Louis  XIV,  Madame  de  Maintenon. 

Long  did  Schenectady  in  the  North  bear  the  name 
of  the  “Dorp,”  or  village;  and  so  also  was  the  first 
settlement  on  Staten  Island  named  —  both  being 
suburban  to  a  city.  Thrice  was  the  insular  enterprise 
destroyed  by  the  Raritan  Indians;  yet  on  Staten  Is¬ 
land  is  still  the  New  Dorp,  and  here  also  is  Hugue¬ 
not  Park.  It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  that  Huguenots  numerously  settled 
at  Marshland,  now  Green  Ridge. 

Staten  Island  is  rich  in  contacts  with  history,  for 
we  read  of  Coleman’s  Point,  where  one  of  Hudson’s 
men  in  the  Half  Moon  was  slain  by  an  Indian  arrow. 
Among  the  edifices,  at  this  writing,  still  standing, 
besides  the  Du  Bois  House,  is  the  Groot  House,  of 
Dutch  architecture  —  the  original  Walloon  family 
being  named  Le  Grand.  With  the  Jacques  house 
were  willows  from  St.  Helena  and  boxwood  from 
Mount  Vernon,  while  the  fence  is  from  the  old  home 
in  Whitehall  Street,  on  Manhattan.  The  Mersereau 


202 


THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 


House  and  the  Crocheron  House  has  each  its  inter¬ 
esting  tradition  —  the  latter  relating  to  the  founder 
of  the  family.  To  escape  execution  in  France,  he 
hid  in  a  hogshead  on  board  a  ship,  in  which  were 
his  neighbors  bound  for  America.  What  wonderful 
tales,  around  their  winter  firesides,  of  flight  and  hid¬ 
ing  and  disguise  and  hairbreadth  escapes,  these  pion¬ 
eers  could  tell! 

Still  intact,  or  the  foundations  visible,  are  the 
former  homes  of  the  Perrines,  Cortelyous,  Cubber- 
lys  (Coverles),  Guyons,  Sequines,  and  Disosways. 
Thoreau,  who  taught  school  here,  was  of  Huguenot 
ancestry.  Though  rich  in  the  lore  of  the  Indians,  of 
the  Italian  and  Dutch  explorers,  of  the  New  Nether- 
landers  of  several  strains,  and  of  the  Huguenots, 
Staten  Island’s  later  history  does  not  now  concern  us. 

Those  who  would,  in  their  imaginations,  reproduce 
its  social  and  religious  aspects  must,  besides  the  mod¬ 
ern  local  histories,  read  the  reports  of  the  two  Laba- 
dists  of  1679.  These  tell  of  le  chaudronnier  (copper¬ 
smith)  who  had  been  a  soldier  in  Brazil,  and  of  old 
Pierre  la  Jardiniere,  who  was  threescore  years  and 
ten.  By  the  year  1698,  there  were  on  the  island 
seven  hundred  and  twenty-seven  persons,  not  a  few 
of  whom,  thrice  persecuted,  had  come  as  refugees 
from  the  Island  of  St.  Kitts  (St.  Christopher)  in  the 
West  Indies.  The  popish  plots  and  brutal  despotism 
of  Louis  XIV  had  cast  long  shadows  across  the  At¬ 
lantic,  and  these  kept  people  in  America  in  constant 
fear  of  the  French  conquest  of  America  and  of  being 

203 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


chained  in  prison,  or  on  benches  of  the  floating  pur¬ 
gatory  of  the  galleys.  No  wonder  then  that  they  were 
“Leislerians”  almost  to  a  man,  and  certainly  to  a 
woman.  After  King  William’s  accession  to  the  Brit¬ 
ish  throne,  their  fears  vanished.  Almost  as  a  matter 
of  course,  these  people  who  counted  liberty  of  con¬ 
science  as  the  best  thing  in  life  stood  by  their  best 
friend,  Jacob  Leisler. 

What  is  characteristic  of  the  entire  Walloon  immi¬ 
gration  to  America  is  true  also  of  the  Walloons  and 
later  Huguenots  from  France  who  settled  on  Staten 
Island.  Their  collective  history  is  recoverable  al¬ 
most  entirely  from  their  church  records.  Their  ca¬ 
reers  centered  in  the  church.  In  their  case  it  is  im¬ 
possible  to  divorce  their  story  from  their  religion  and 
conscience.  Without  an  organization  at  first,  Dom- 
ines  Michaelius  and  Drisius  from  the  fort  on  Man¬ 
hattan,  and  later  Domine  Selyns  —  beginner  of  the 
literature  of  New  York — visited  them  once  a  month. 

For  twenty  years  they  had  private  worship,  sacred 
song,  monthly  preaching,  and  baptism  of  their  chil¬ 
dren;  but  in  1680  a  church  with  French  services  was 
organized  and  an  edifice  at  Stony  Brook  was  built. 
The  Reverend  David  Bon  Repos  served  as  pastor, 
having  been  called  by  the  Dutch  Church  on  Man¬ 
hattan  to  minister  exclusively  to  those  who  used 
the  French  tongue. 

Their  second  spiritual  shepherd  was  the  famous 
Pierre  Daille  —  “full  of  fire,  godliness,  and  learn¬ 
ing,”  as  his  colleague,  Domine  Selyns,  declared. 

204 


THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 


Born  in  France  in  1649,  Daill6  became  at  thirty  pro¬ 
fessor  of  Christian  theology  at  Saumur,  in  one  of 
the  four  Huguenot  seminaries  in  France.  Under  the 
bigotry  of  Louis  XIV,  these  schools  were  broken  up 
and  their  faculties  banished.  Arriving  in  America 
in  1683,  Daille  proved  himself  a  veritable  apostle 
to  his  fellow  countrymen,  the  scattered  Huguenots. 
Besides  being  pastor  of  the  French  church  in  New 
York,  we  find  him  on  Staten  Island,  at  Harlem,  New 
Paltz,  Bushwick,  Long  Island,  Hackensack,  New 
Jersey,  New  Rochelle,  several  places  on  Long  Island, 
and  wherever  there  was  the  greatest  need,  comfort¬ 
ing,  cheering,  and  helping  souls.  Called  to  Boston, 
Daille  served  the  French  Reformed  Church  on 
School  Street,  from  1696  to  1715,  making  a  deep  im¬ 
press  on  the  life  of  the  city. 

It  was  hard  for  the  strictest  Puritans  to  encourage, 
by  granting  toleration,  in  allowing  among  them 
such  people  of  joyous  temperament,  who  celebrated 
Christmas  and  Easter.  These  church  festivals  were 
unnoticed  in  Boston,  until  well  into  the  nineteenth 
century.  Yet  Daille  won  all  hearts,  and  when  dying 
too  soon,  at  sixty-six,  he  was  mourned  by  thousands. 

On  Manhattan,  in  1688,  the  Huguenots  left  the 
old  Dutch  church  in  the  fort  and  worshiped  in  the 
new  edifice  built  on  Marketfield  Street.  In  the  latter 
part  of  his  ministry  in  New  York,  Daille  had  a  col¬ 
league,  the  Reverend  Mr.  Peiret,  who  served  the 
churches  from  1688  to  1704,  preaching  usually  in  the 
city,  while  Daille  itinerated  in  the  country. 

205 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

One  need  not  here  enlarge  upon  the  history  of  the 
Huguenot  churches  in  America,  nor  on  the  antiqua¬ 
rian  details  —  for  which  one  may  look  in  the  local 
histories.  Their  general  spirit  and  procedure  was 
that  of  the  Reformed  Churches  everywhere.  In  good 
season,  these  people  set  a  good  example,  for  all  time, 
to  immigrants.  They  quickly  conformed  in  language 
and  ways  of  life  to  the  country  in  which  they  dwelt. 
Naturally,  they  coalesced  first  with  the  Dutch  and 
later  with  the  American  churches  of  the  Episcopal  or 
the  Presbyterian  order,  and  through  marriage  helped 
in  forming  the  American  Commonwealth. 

Still  another  nationality  was  to  be  added  to  the 
American  composite  when,  on  Christmas  Day,  1656, 
a  company  of  hunted  Christians  from  Piedmont, 
Italy,  the  Waldenses,  one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  in 
number,  sailed  for  New  Netherland.  They  had  been 
driven  out  by  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  had  joined 
that  company  of  rulers  who,  in  the  name  of  God, 
while  trying  to  kill  conscience,  proved  themselves 
unwittingly  to  be  American  colonizers.  It  was  in 
behalf  of  these  people  that  Cromwell  protested  with 
effect  and  Milton  wrote  his  seraphic  sonnet,  begin¬ 
ning:  “Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints.” 
The  West  India  Company,  in  1656,  gave  the  Wal¬ 
denses  passage  in  the  ships  named  Prince  Maurice, 
Bear,  and  Flower. 

Let  it  be  repeated  that  commonplace  records 
abundantly  show  that  the  Dutch  Republic  excelled 
all  other  states  of  Europe  in  the  welcome  given  to 

206 


THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 


the  Pilgrim  fathers,  mothers,  and  children  of  all 
sorts,  and  to  people  of  many  nations,  Hebrew  and 
Christian.  Even  a  pagan  received  Christian  treat¬ 
ment.  Not  at  once,  but  in  time,  the  spirit  of  the 
Father  of  his  Country,  William  the  Silent,  prevailed. 
Bradford,  the  typical  Pilgrim  Father,  when  still  in 
England,  heard,  and  when  in  Holland  found  it  to  be 
true,  “that  religion  was  free  for  all  men”  —  a  free¬ 
dom  which  irritated  the  sectarian  bigots  and  fanatics 
of  every  State  Church,  whether  called  Protestant  or 
Catholic.  None  denounced  this  Republic  for  its  tol¬ 
erance  more  than  the  English  State  Churchmen.  No 
name  was  too  vile  to  bestow  upon  the  country  and 
people  who  held  to  the  belief  that  “when  persecu¬ 
tion  begins,  Christianity  ends.” 

Despite  all  human  precautions  for  safety,  disaster 
befell  these  Italian  fugitives  from  the  cruelty  of  man. 
Saved  by  the  Dutch  in  Europe,  they  met  in  America 
distress  from  Nature.  A  terrible  storm  drove  the 
three  ships  apart.  Two  of  these,  the  Bear  and  the 
Flower,  though  delayed,  got  safely  to  Manhattan; 
but  the  larger  one,  the  Prince  Maurice,  which  had 
most  of  the  Waldenses  aboard,  struck  at  midnight  on 
the  ice-bound  coast  of  Long  Island,  near  Fire  Island. 
Through  the  dark  and  cold  hours  of  a  winter  night, 
they  waited  until  daybreak.  Then  the  crew  and  pas¬ 
sengers  climbed  over  the  ice  to  the  shore,  hoping  to 
make  a  fire  and  get  warm.  But  on  landing  they 
found  only  sand,  with  no  fuel,  even  of  driftwood,  of 
grass,  or  of  weeds.  There  they  waited,  shivering, 

207 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

and  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do ;  for  at  first  no  hu¬ 
man  beings  were  visible. 

Yet  for  three  centuries,  on  this  wreck-strewn  shore, 
have  dwelt  the  Shinnecock  Indians,  sons  of  the  soil. 
These  human  brothers  of  ours,  down  to  our  day, 
when  but  a  handful  of  survivors  remain,  have  ever 
been  the  helpers,  friends,  and  rescuers  of  the  ship¬ 
wrecked,  even  at  the  hazard  of  their  own  lives. 
Theirs  has  been  a  permanent  “Life  Saving  Institu¬ 
tion/1 

At  that  critical  winter  hour,  the  Shinnecocks  ap¬ 
peared  and  came  to  the  help  of  the  Waldenses.  One 
of  them  carried  a  letter  to  Governor  Stuyvesant,  im¬ 
ploring  his  aid.  At  once  the  kindly  old  hero  sent  out 
yachts  and  soon  went  himself  to  help  the  distressed 
people.  In  a  short  time,  all  these  Waldenses  were  on 
Manhattan,  where  they  found  their  other  friends 
from  the  two  ships.  Most  of  the  cargo  of  the  Prince 
Maurice  was  later  salvaged,  but  for  many  years  the 
sea-scoured  and  wave-whitened  bones  of  the  once 
gallant  ship  were  visible  —  one  of  a  hundred  or  more 
that  have  ended  their  careers  on  this  ancient  Island 
of  Shells. 

After  a  short  stay,  the  majority  of  the  Walden¬ 
ses  made  settlement  on  the  Delaware.  Some  chose 
Staten  Island,  to  which,  in  1662  and  1663,  other 
Waldensian  families  came.  It  is  from  these  facts 
that  the  names  of  Italian  origin,  found  on  Staten  Is¬ 
land  so  early  in  the  history  of  New  York,  are  ac¬ 
counted  for.  From  1652  to  about  1750,  their  chief 

208 


THE  ISLAND  OF  THE  STATES 


settlement,  so  tradition  avers,  was  at  Stony  Brook; 
after  which,  the  Waldenses  were  lost  in  the  mass  of 
the  American  people. 

At  last,  on  the  dial-plate  of  time,  the  day  and  the 
hour  for  the  honoring  of  the  founders  of  Staten  Is¬ 
land  drew  near.  In  1922,  led  by  the  generosity,  zeal, 
skill,  and  taste  of  architect  Ernest  Flagg,  the  people 
of  Huguenot  Park  moved  in  the  enterprise  of  erect¬ 
ing  a  fitting  monument  to  their  Walloon  and  French 
ancestors,  to  be  called  the  Huguenot  Church,  with  a 
Memorial  House  to  be  for  the  good  of  the  commun¬ 
ity.  May  this  undertaking  be  but  the  harbinger  of 
works  of  art,  beauty,  and  usefulness  that  shall  keep 
alive  the  memories  of  those  to  whom  we,  as  Ameri¬ 
cans,  owe  so  much. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 

The  American  who  knows  well  the  City  of  Brotherly 
Love,  which  was  laid  out  by  William  Penn  with  the 
regularity  of  a  chess  board,  having  numbered  streets 
crossed  by  others  with  forest-tree  names,  feels  won¬ 
derfully  at  home  in  Mannheim,  that  is,  “man’s 
home”  —  on  the  Rhine.  The  question  whether  the 
founder  of  Pennsylvania  borrowed  his  idea  from 
ancient  Babylon,  or  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem,  that 
“lieth  foursquare”  and  had  a  river  flowing  through 
it,  or  from  Mannheim,  is  not  here  debated. 

Penn  traveled  much  in  Reformed  countries. 
From  Crefeld,  in  Germany,  and  other  towns  and 
cities  along  the  Rhine,  he  led  large  numbers  of  na¬ 
tives  and  refugees,  the  Mennonites  in  Friesland  and 
notably  the  Welsh,  his  own  countrymen,  from  other 
lands  into  the  territory  named  by  King  Charles  II 
“The  Groves  of  Penn.”  Two  of  our  poets,  both  of 
Huguenot  blood,  have  sung  the  praises  of  Penn’s 
“godly  experiment.” 

Whittier  celebrated  the  Mennonite  Pastorius  in 
“The  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim.”  Of  the  streets  of  the 
City  of  Brotherly  Love  named  from  the  trees  of  the 
forest,  “as  if  to  appease  the  Dryads,  whose  haunts 
they  had  invaded,”  Longfellow,  in  his  “  Evangeline,” 
tells  us.  One  of  the  first  duties  of  Penn,  shortly  after 


210 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 

his  arrival,  was  to  naturalize  a  company  of  Walloons 
—  very  probably  from  Belgic  Land,  by  way  of  Ger¬ 
many  and  Holland.  It  was  in  1606,  three  years  be¬ 
fore  Henry  Hudson  sailed  into  American  history,  on 
the  Half  Moon,  that  the  Great  Elector  of  the  Palati¬ 
nate,  a  true  Defender  of  the  “  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints,”  laid  out  Mannheim  on  a  new  plan. 
Most  European  cities,  built  on  mediaeval  or  feud¬ 
alists  plans,  were  crowded  and  cramped  within 
walls,  with  crooked  streets,  undrained,  and  liable  to 
the  recurring  pestilence  called  the  plague.  In  hot 
weather,  the  avenues  were  noisome.  It  was  the 
general  custom  to  let  the  pigs  loose  at  night,  to  feed 
on  the  garbage  thrown  from  the  windows.  The  new 
city  of  Mannheim,  besides  being  well  drained,  was 
laid  out  with  thoroughfares  at  right  angles.  They 
were  thus  open  to  the  sunlight. 

Even  finer  than  the  form  was  the  spirit  of  Mann¬ 
heim.  The  Elector,  champion  of  freedom  of  con¬ 
science,  who  invited  twenty-five  thousand  Hugue¬ 
nots  to  settle  in  Berlin,  gave  welcome  in  his  domain 
to  all  these  fleeing  from  the  clerical  oppression  of 
the  churchianity  that  had,  in  so  large  a  measure, 
driven  out  the  spirit  of  Christianity.  Frankfort  had 
been  the  focus  of  freedom,  but  now  Mannheim  ex¬ 
celled.  Thousands  of  Walloon  and  other  oppressed 
folk  thronged  to  the  new  city  of  refuge  and  found 
peace  and  prosperity.  After  1685,  when  Louis  XIV 
revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  a  second  great  immi¬ 
gration  from  France  met  welcome.  The  city  was 


211 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


then  enlarged,  and  the  thrifty  and  skillful  Hugue¬ 
nots  who  had  made  fortunes  were  able  to  assist  their 
poorer  brethren  elsewhere. 

As  early  as  1554,  there  went  out  from  Mannheim, 
the  capital  city,  hundreds  of  Walloons  to  a  lovely 
valley  three  or  four  leagues  distant,  to  make  a  settle¬ 
ment  which  was  fitly  named  Frankenthal  —  the  Val¬ 
ley  of  the  Free.  To  the  story  of  this  place  we  now 
turn,  for  over  two  thirds  of  the  names  on  the  rolls  of 
the  Walloon  churches  at  this  place  were  reproduced 
in  Nova  Belgica,  or  can  be  read,  in  more  or  less  al¬ 
tered  form,  in  our  city  directories.  Some  of  the  fam¬ 
ilies  of  Walloon  descent,  in  the  Empire  State  still 
preserve  the  letters  of  dismission  from  the  pastors 
and  churches  of  Frankenthal. 

One  of  the  most  energetic  of  the  Walloon  pioneers 
in  America  was  Louis  du  Bois,  born  in  1627  at  Lille, 
an  old  Belgic-French  city  and  destined  to  make  a 
name  and  settlement  in  the  middle  region  of  the 
Hudson,  between  New  York  and  Albany.  He  led  a 
colony  and  founded  New  Paltz  on  the  Hudson. 

From  Lille,  the  Walloon  city  of  weavers  and  tex¬ 
tiles,  then  situated  on  Belgic  soil,  there  began,  about 
1647,  a  migration  eastward  of  these  Bible  readers 
into  the  lower  Palatinate,  on  the  Rhine,  where  was 
freedom  of  religion.  Their  old  home  land  had  been 
seized  by  Louis  XIV,  but  for  those  who  suffered,  a 
change  from  Spanish  to  French  bigotry  was  no  im¬ 
provement.  Whether  their  masters  were  Spanish  or 
French  mattered  little,  for  both  were  tyrants  of  the 


212 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 


peculiarly  Latin  order.  So  in  the  “Paltz,”  as  the 
Walloons  called  the  German  State,  where  also  were 
Waldenses  and  a  few  people  from  the  British  Isles, 
they  found  peace  and  home.  In  America  their  haven 
of  refuge  was  fitly  named  New  Paltz,  or  the  New 
Palatinate.  Near  by  was  the  larger  and  older  settle¬ 
ment  of  Wiltwick  —  much  later  called  Kingston  and 
for  a  time  the  capital  of  the  State,  at  whose  early 
history  we  shall  now  glance. 

In  Mannheim,  both  before  and  after  the  Revoca¬ 
tion  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  many  Huguenots  found 
refuge,  as  has  been  said.  It  is  even  possible  that 
there  was  not  a  year,  from  1624  to  1700,  and  cer¬ 
tainly  there  was  not  a  decade,  during  which  the  ships 
floating  the  flag  of  the  Dutch  Republic  did  not  bring 
Walloon  or  French  Huguenots  from  Germany  to 
America. 

In  Mannheim,  Louis  du  Bois  married  a  Walloon 
maiden,  and  two  sons,  Abraham  and  Isaac,  were 
bom  to  them.  Then  preferring  the  American  wilder¬ 
ness  and  the  red  savages,  with  the  risks  of  tomahawk 
and  scalping  knife,  to  the  Inquisition  and  galleys  un¬ 
der  such  kings  as  ruled  in  his  day,  he  started  for  the 
New  World,  with  his  fellow  believers.  After  sailing 
down  the  Rhine,  into  the  Republic,  in  the  spring-time 
of  1660,  he  left  for  America  in  the  ship  Gilded  Otter. 
This  early  season  was  chosen  so  as  to  have  crops  and 
food  before  winter.  Other  Walloon  families  followed 
this  same  year. 

On  setting  foot  on  Manhattan,  instead  of  seeing 

213 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

the  solid  stone  structures  of  the  Old  World  —  the 
splendid  churches  of  ancient  fame  and  glory  and  the 
ornate  town  halls  in  their  old  home  —  they  beheld 
about  two  hundred  poorly  built  houses.  These  shel¬ 
tered  over  fourteen  hundred  souls.  Inside  the  fort, 
on  Manhattan,  were  the  Dutch  church  and  the  Di¬ 
rector’s  house  and  gardens.  As  in  the  northern 
Netherlands,  there  was  a  windmill  in  one  of  the  bas¬ 
tions  and  the  tricolor  flag,  orange,  white,  and  blue, 
waved  over  all.  The  hateful  monopolies  —  espe¬ 
cially  that  one  of  bolted  flour,  to  be  done  only  on 
Manhattan,  so  enriching  to  the  city  folk,  but  cursed 
by  every  farmer  and  sure  to  foment  trouble  —  were 
not  as  yet. 

The  first  party  of  pioneers  decided  to  settle  at 
Esopus.  This  place,  or  rather  region,  central  be¬ 
tween  New  York  and  Albany,  had  been  named  by 
the  Indians.  By  nature  it  was  very  lovely,  with 
grand  vistas,  having  the  Catskills  in  their  majesty  of 
walls  of  azure,  filling  the  western  background,  while 
the  glorious  Hudson  fronted  all.  The  country  was 
well  watered,  for  the  affluents  of  the  mountain-bom 
rain  stream  drained  and  gave  entrance  into  a  large 
area  and  fertile  territory  rich  in  game. 

Fair  indeed  is  Nature’s  setting  of  both  Esopus 
and  Wiltwick,  or  Rondout  and  Kingston,  with  sky, 
water,  and  land  making  a  picture  of  unfading  beauty. 
The  alluring  valley,  the  lordly  river,  the  picturesque 
scenery  delighted  the  newcomers.  The  Walkill,  or 
Walloon’s  Kill,  drains  a  fertile  area  in  two  States  and 

214 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 


takes  its  name  from  the  initial  settlers.  Not  far 
away,  a  mile  or  so,  was  founded  the  new  village,  later 
called  Hurley.  The  names  of  the  settlements  around 
the  former  capital  of  the  Empire  State  are  well 
worthy  of  study.  The  Dutch  name  of  the  colony  that 
became  Kingston  was  given  in  compliment  to  the  In¬ 
dian  owners.  It  was  called  Wiltwick,  that  is,  the 
town  of  Goodwill,  for  the  red  men  gave  freely  the  site. 

All  Nature  seemed  to  smile  a  welcome.  Even  the 
savages  had  obeyed  the  mandate  of  the  Great  Spirit, 
to  subdue  and  replenish  the  earth,  so  that  farm 
lands,  already  prepared  by  human  hands,  awaited 
the  seed  and  toil  of  the  newcomers.  Nevertheless, 
desolation  was  impending.  To  ascertain  why  the 
menace  impended,  we  must  look  at  the  first  owners 
of  the  soil. 

History  compels  us  to  the  conviction  that  the 
white  man,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  conceit  as  supe¬ 
rior,  and  his  pride  in  a  higher  civilization,  actually 
debauched  the  savage  and  retarded  his  steady 
evolution.  Slowly  but  surely  the  Indians  had  been 
rising  in  the  scale  of  progress.  When  Europeans 
appeared,  they  for  a  time  checked,  instead  of  devel¬ 
oping,  his  culture.  For  gain,  the  white  trader  sold 
the  red  man  guns  and  powder,  in  exchange  for  his 
beaver  skins  and  acres.  Yet  when  the  latent  fire  of 
excited  animal  passion  was  let  loose,  both  life  and 
land,  and  morals  were  burned  up  in  the  flames  of 
mutual  hatred.  Soon  becoming  expert  gunmen,  the 
tribes  began  first  to  decimate  and  finally  to  exter- 

215 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


minate  each  other,  and  to  make  of  themselves 
over  the  whole  continent  nuisances  as  pestiferous  as 
wolves  or  serpents.  Because  of  this,  they  invited  ex¬ 
termination  at  the  hands  of  more  civilized  human  be¬ 
ings;  so  that  to-day,  only  the  names  of  the  moun¬ 
tains  and  the  rivers  echo  in  the  void,  where  no  In¬ 
dians  are,  but  whose  fathers,  by  thousands,  were 
once  lords  of  the  soil.  In  the  white  man’s  histories, 
we  are  told  that  the  red  man  “would  not  accept  our 
civilization.”  Yet  we  are  constrained  to  ask  why 
should  they  —  if  built  on  strong  drink  and  murder¬ 
ous  weapons? 

Taking  the  next  step  in  their  progress  downward, 
the  savages  turned  their  guns  against  the  white 
man.  Then  the  old  fable  of  the  eagle,  wounded  to 
death  by  the  shaft  feathered  with  its  own  plumage, 
was  actualized  in  blood  and  fire. 

In  regions  more  westerly,  issuing  not  only  from 
pits  and  hollows  in  the  ground,  or  from  crevices  of 
the  rocks,  but  even  uprising  from  flowing  streams 
and  gurgling  brooks,  were  both  the  mineral  oil  which 
we  call  petroleum,  and  the  inflammable  vapor  to 
which  we  give  the  name  of  natural  gas.  Within  the 
memory  of  men  now  living,  this  gas  has  been  util¬ 
ized  for  heat  and  illumination.  Corporations  now 
harness  and  sell  for  coin  that  of  which  the  abo¬ 
rigines  knew  not  the  value,  any  more  than  that  of 
the  metallic  ores  under  their  feet.  It  was  one  of  the 
amusements  of  the  Indian  children  to  apply  fire  and 
light  the  bubbles  and  tiny  mists  from  the  marshes. 

216 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 


By  the  same  means,  they  made  the  crimson  tongues 
of  flame  rise  out  of,  or  play  on  the  surface,  even,  of 
the  ice-cold,  rippling  current.  This  was  their  game 
of  “icy-hot,”  even  before  the  modern  invention  of 
the  “thermos  bottle”  thus  advertised.  Hence  the 
name,  whether  the  flame  came  from  swamp  or  rock 
fissure,  of  “fire  water”  applied  to  the  white  man’s 
distillations  and  devilish  concoctions. 

The  solid  black  mixture  of  saltpeter,  sulphur,  and 
charcoal  and  the  liquid  poison  wrought  together  for 
the  mutual  destruction  of  red  and  white  man.  In  both 
cases,  the  ancient  truth  was  verified:  “At  last  it 
biteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an  adder.” 
Where  there  was  one  settler  killed  because  of  fire¬ 
arms  at  the  hands  of  Indians,  there  were  probably  a 
dozen  red  men  shot  to  death  by  murderers  of  their 
own  race,  in  internecine  feuds  and  battles.  The  effi¬ 
cient  causes  also  of  most  of  the  so-called  “massa¬ 
cres”  of  white  by  red  men  were  gunpowder  and  rum. 
In  other  cases,  Indian  vengeance,  in  return  for  white 
man’s  brutalities,  explained  what  was  too  readily 
called  a  “mysterious  Providence.”  In  the  end,  the 
weapons,  both  solid  and  liquid,  together  with  the 
diseases  of  the  palefaces,  meant  what  was  well-nigh 
extermination  of  the  savages.  What  the  Inquisition 
and  the  tyrant  rulers  in  Europe  signified  to  Bible 
readers,  compelling  exile  and  movement  westward, 
the  white  man’s  “fire,”  in  both  his  iron  tubes  and  his 
demijohns,  meant  to  the  Indians.  They  were  stead¬ 
ily  driven  towards  the  setting  sun. 

217 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


No  more  blameworthy  than  other  European  set¬ 
tlers,  from  Florida  to  Maine,  the  colonists  at  New 
Paltz  were  soon  to  suffer,  through  both  cause  and  ef¬ 
fect,  from  firearms  and  fire  water,  and  more  immedi¬ 
ately  because  of  the  Indian  policy  of  the  honest  but 
autocratic  and  irascible  Stuyvesant.  His  methods 
were  not  those  of  Peter  Minuit,  Arendt  Van  Curler, 
Roger  Williams,  or  William  Penn.  To  the  deviltry 
of  firearms  and  fire  water  Stuyvesant  added  a  crime 
which  no  Indian  was  known  to  forgive  —  that  of 
slave-driving.  Africa,  but  not  America,  might  carry 
such  a  cross. 

The  first  of  the  greatest  mistakes  of  this  brave  old 
warrior  was  typical  of  his  age.  In  his  severity  of  in¬ 
tolerance  in  religion,  in  narrow-mindedness,  and  in 
government,  he  was  an  average  magistrate  of  the 
century.  The  second  mistake,  which  involved  a  dis¬ 
tressing  war,  and  legacies  of  hate  unquenched  for 
generations,  lay  in  his  ignorance  of  Indian  psychol¬ 
ogy,  while  underrating  the  courage  of  the  freeman  of 
the  forest.  The  negro,  belonging  to  the  most  patient 
of  races,  might  be  made  a  slave,  but  not  the  Indian. 

After  the  first  Esopus  war,  Stuyvesant,  because  a 
man  of  his  time  and  therefore  well  able  to  do  some 
things  almost  unthinkable  to  a  Netherlands  Chris¬ 
tian  of  to-day,  sent  some  of  his  Indian  prisoners  as 
slaves  to  Curagoa,  in  the  West  Indies.  This  proceed¬ 
ing  kindled  in  the  red  man’s  breast  the  fires  of  re¬ 
venge. 

To  add  insult  to  injury,  the  colonists,  violating  the 

218 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 


fundamental  principle  of  the  Dutch  charter,  had 
built  the  new  village  on  land  claimed  by  the  Indians; 
while  the  older  settlers,  infatuated  with  love  of  gain, 
sold  guns  and  rum  freely  to  the  red  men.  Again  the 
world-old  truth,  that  not  money,  but  the  lust  for  it, 
or  money-love,  is  a  root  of  all  kinds  of  evil,  was 
demonstrated.  On  the  7th  of  June,  the  savages  in 
a  concerted  attack  wiped  out  the  new  village  of 
New  Paltz  in  fire  and  blood. 

At  Wiltwick,  the  onslaught  was  less  successful. 
Warned  in  time,  by  mounted  men  spurring  in  from 
the  new  village,  the  settlers,  led  by  the  brave  young 
Domine  Blum,  fought  long  and  hard  and  the 
drunken  brutes  and  crafty  savages  were  driven  off. 
Besides  over  a  score  of  Christians  killed,  fifty  or 
more  white  persons  were  hurried  into  captivity.  The 
Indian  had  learned  from  his  foe,  who  sold  human 
flesh  in  the  market,  how  to  make  money  by  ransom. 
It  was  an  old  European  custom.  There  were  ransom 
brokers  by  the  thousands.  The  complements  of 
slaves  for  the  French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  war  gal¬ 
leys  were  recruited  at  slave  auctions. 

So  the  red  men  held  their  prisoners  and  treated 
them  decently,  awaiting  their  purchase;  meanwhile 
building  a  palisade  for  defense.  Three  months 
passed  in  captivity.  For  the  Christians  in  duress, 
daily  prayer  and  the  singing  of  Marot’s  Psalms 
proved  their  best  solace.  Then  Louis  du  Bois  and 
Captain  Kragier  led  the  rescuing  party. 

Once  again,  in  threefold  demonstration,  it  was 

'219 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


shown  how  foolish  is  injustice  and  how  inferior,  in 
the  fine  art  of  living  together,  as  a  means  of  either 
protection  or  redress,  is  force;  how  idiotic  is  the  lust 
for  money,  and  how  much  more  effective,  for  mutual 
benefit  and  equal  righteousness,  and  how  practically 
valuable  are  a  knowledge  of  psychology  and  the 
practice  of  the  Golden  Rule  —  the  way  of  Penn, 
rather  than  of  Stuyvesant,  or  of  Van  Curler  rather 
than  Kieft. 

To  the  north,  living  in  Schenectady  among  the 
Mohawks,  this  man,  whose  name,  “Corlaer,”  is  now 
given  to  governors  and  kings  as  the  synonym  of 
righteousness  and  power,  was  able  by  his  covenant 
of  mutual  justice  to  protect  his  settlement,  which 
was  immune  from  attack  until  after  his  death.  Then 
French  priestcraft  and  bigotry,  having  poisoned  the 
minds  of  the  savage  perverts,  prompted  the  raid  and 
massacre  of  1690,  which  Leisler  had  tried  to  fore- 
fend. 

One  happy  incident,  the  result  of  the  pursuit  of 
the  Esopus  Indians,  was  the  discovery  by  du  Bois  of 
the  lovely  Walkill  valley,  so  rich  in  farm  land.  Into 
this  earthly  paradise,  at  the  base  of  the  Shawungunk 
mountains,  “du  Bois  the  Walloon,”  in  1663,  led  en¬ 
terprising  settlers  to  build  their  homes.  In  grateful 
memory  of  the  hospitality  of  the  Great  Elector  of 
the  Pfalz  they  named  their  new  home  New  Paltz. 

In  1664,  through  treacherous  conquest,  New 
Netherland  was  given  a  name  that  had  little  mean¬ 
ing  and  no  relation  either  to  contemporaneous  fact 


220 


THE  AMERICAN  PALATINATE 


or  to  its  past  history.  The  change  in  the  political 
status  of  the  New  Netherlanders,  under  the  govern¬ 
ance  of  the  very  untrustworthy  Duke  of  York,  who 
was  noted  for  his  voluble  but  slippery  promises,  did 
not  put  an  end  to  the  coming  of  either  Belgic  Wal¬ 
loons  or  French  Huguenots.  This  went  steadily  on, 
even  though  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  Anglican  religious 
corporation,  “established  by  law,”  tried  to  make 
American  history  revert  to  mediaeval  conceptions, 
as  we  shall  see.  Against  this  procedure  of  prelates, 
to  form  a  State  Church,  the  Dutch  and  Walloon 
majority  of  inhabitants  made  stout  resistance,  even 
to  the  victorious  end.  Hence  it  was  that  New  York 
in  1777  led  all  the  States  in  liberality,  granting  not 
only  toleration,  but  absolute  liberty  of  religion  to 
all  law-abiding  citizens.  Then  the  hope  and  vis¬ 
ion  of  William  the  Silent,  the  far-seeing,  became 
fruition  and  reality ;  while  the  very  first  amendment 
to  the  national  constitution  was  against  any  intro¬ 
duction  into  the  United  States  of  religion  “by  law 
established.” 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

Two  of  the  worst  kings  that  ever  sat  on  the  throne 
of  England  were  the  Stuarts,  Charles  II  and  James 
II.  In  addition  to  other  lapses  from  integrity,  both 
aspired  to  capture  New  Netherland,  in  a  time  of 
peace.  After  hoodwinking  the  Dutch  ambassador, 
Charles  II  sent  an  armed  squadron,  by  which  con¬ 
quest  was  made  and  possession  taken.  The  flag  of  a 
monarchy,  instead  of  a  republic,  waved  over  Man¬ 
hattan  in  1664. 

Yet  if  one  seeks  to  record  facts  with  the  honesty 
of  the  contemporary  writer,  Bishop  Burnet,  the 
reader  may  well  ask,  “Was  this  treacherous  business 
a  success?  Was  the  conquest  nominal  or  real?  Did 
New  York  become  a  little  England,  or  more  sturdily 
American?” 

The  real  history  of  New  York,  from  1664  to  1775, 
is  one  of  social  and  religious,  even  more  than  politi¬ 
cal  opposition  to  what  English  statesmen  and  gov¬ 
ernors  tried,  with  more  or  less  purity  of  motives, 
to  introduce  into  what  had  been  a  province  of  the 
Dutch  Republic.  The  pith  of  the  story  of  New  Neth¬ 
erland  is  found  in  the  popular  struggles  against  the 
tyranny  of  a  grasping  corporation,  the  covetousness 
of  patroons,  and  the  folly  of  men  ever  looking  to¬ 
wards  selfish  ends.  The  desire  of  the  people  was  for 


222 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

the  same  freedom  which  had  been  enjoyed  at  home. 
Wearied  by  the  long  conflict,  they  hoped  for  even 
more  liberty  under  English  rule.  In  this  they  were 
disappointed.  It  was  not  until  after  twenty  years  of 
English  rule  that  they  arrived  at  the  same  point  left 
off  under  the  Dutch  —  the  election  of  a  popular  rep¬ 
resentative  assembly,  which  they  had  gained  in 
1663. 

For  from  the  very  first,  the  English  lords  of 
Church  and  State  made  the  usual  blunders  of  most 
conquerors  in  failing  to  understand  the  psychology 
of  the  nominally  conquered.  The  initial  purpose, 
ever  persevered  in  by  the  autocratic  king,  the  lords 
temporal  and  spiritual,  and  the  commercially- 
minded  Commons  in  Parliament,  seemed  to  be  to 
inflict  on  the  colonists  the  features  which  they  had 
most  hated,  and  of  which  they  had  left  Europe  to 
be  forever  rid.  These  were  autocracy,  Church  and 
State  in  political  combination,  the  surviving  forms 
of  feudalism  and  privilege,  the  arrant  nonsense  of 
“divine  right,”  and  an  aristocracy  based  on  birth. 
These  were  what,  for  their  weal  or  woe,  the  colonists 
detested  and  were  determined  to  do  away  with.  In  a 
word,  they  wanted  and  resolved  to  have  only  what  in 
Europe  was  good,  and  that  which  they  deemed  just 
to  themselves  as  men  and  fair  to  humanity.  What 
had  bred  persecution,  cruelty,  and  bloodshed,  they 
were  a  unit  in  their  purpose  to  leave  and  keep  be¬ 
hind. 

The  influence  of  the  new  environment  had  already 

223 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


begun  to  affect  them.  Amid  the  freedom  of  the  vir¬ 
gin  forests,  with  vistas  of  boundless  expansion,  they 
were  determined  to  get  what  they  wanted,  even  if  in 
their  methods  of  seeking  it  they  were  no  gentler  than 
their  oppressors,  to  whom  the  rack,  the  scourge,  the 
gallows,  the  axe,  and  the  sword  had  been  familiar 
methods  of  persuasion.  These  people  did  not  jest  at 
scars,  for  the  reason  that  they  had  felt  wounds. 

Yet  it  would  be  absurd  to  apply  “  the  frontier  the¬ 
ory  ”  to  explain  fully  why  the  people  of  New  York  — 
the  Americans,  such  as  they  were  or  are,  either  then 
or  now  —  differ  so  notably  from  Englishmen.  Al¬ 
ready  even  in  1664,  the  new  type  of  man  was  form¬ 
ing.  So  much  French,  Dutch,  and  other  strains  of 
blood,  in  a  people  and  in  a  country  in  which  seven¬ 
teen  languages  were  spoken,  made  it  impossible  for 
the  insular  institutions  of  England  to  work  in  har¬ 
mony  with  those  on  Manhattan  and  the  neighboring 
islands,  or  in  the  valleys  of  our  broad  rivers. 

Undoubtedly  these  royal  agents  in  power,  with 
old-world  notions,  meant  well.  Some  were  less  grasp¬ 
ing  and  covetous  than  others,  nor  were  they  hide¬ 
bound  creatures  of  tradition  and  routine.  Several  of 
the  king’s  appointees  were  men  of  conscience  and 
integrity;  but  in  the  main,  the  less  the  doings  of  the 
English  governors  from  1664  to  1776  are  exposed  to 
view,  the  more  we,  of  English  descent,  at  least,  and 
proud  of  our  birthright  and  inheritance,  think  of  the 
dear  Fatherland  whence  our  Welsh,  English,  Scotch, 
and  Irish  ancestors  came. 


224 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

In  the  last  analysis,  we  may  say  that  in  growth  to¬ 
ward  nationality  the  “Continental”  prevailed  over 
purely  traditional  elements  and  the  local  spirit.  The 
idea  of  a  union  of  all  the  colonies,  first  suggested  by 
Leisler,  gained  a  strength  that  steadily  increased, 
through  the  logic  of  the  events  of  July  4,  1776,  of 
June  14,  1 777,  and  of  September  17,  1787.  In  suc¬ 
cession,  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  flag  of 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  the  Constitution  formed 
by  “the  people  of  the  United  States”  took  their 
place  in  the  annals  of  mankind  and  “a  more  perfect 
union”  was  formed. 

The  ideas  generated  on  American  soil  came  into 
collision  with  those  which  honest  and  capable  Brit¬ 
ish  statesmen  felt  were  sound  and  even  altruistic. 
Americans,  following  the  democratic  principles  of 
the  Netherlands  Communes  and  the  motto  of  1477, 
“No  taxation  without  consent,”  demanded  repre¬ 
sentation  in  Parliament  and  raised  the  cry,  “No 
taxation  without  representation.”  Even  the  Amer¬ 
ican  opposition  to  bad  British  government,  when 
better  organized  in  all  the  colonies,  followed  closely 
in  its  methods  those  which  in  Parliament  resulted 
in  a  better  Britain,  and  in  which  we  on  this  side 
of  the  water  rejoice.  The  outcome  in  the  American 
Commonwealth  redounds  to  the  glory  of  English 
history  and  is  part  of  it. 

To  this  day,  also,  British  folk  usually  refer  to  the 
American  Commonwealth  as  “the  States,”  while 
good  Americans  lay  emphasis  on  the  United  States 

225 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  think  of  their  country  in  the  singular,  making 
use  only  as  a  sub-title  of  the  plural.  To  them,  the 
body  is  more  than  its  members.  It  does  not  contrib¬ 
ute  to  a  better  understanding  between  Englishmen 
and  Americans  to  represent  the  latter  as  a  mere  off¬ 
shoot  of  the  English  stock.  It  is  this  unwarranted  as¬ 
sumption  of  wholly  English  culture  and  preponder¬ 
ating  English  blood,  that  has  more  than  once  embit¬ 
tered  international  relations.  Even  such  historians 
as  Edward  A.  Freeman,  Goldwin  Smith,  and  James 
Bryce  have  proceeded  on  this  misleading  theory,  and 
many  publicists  and  societies,  and  the  English  press, 
still  refuse  to  face  the  facts,  which  were  as  patent 
in  the  seventeenth  as  in  the  twentieth  century.  In 
their  research  into  documents,  governmental  acts, 
and  things  purely  external,  scholars  have  forgotten 
to  study  the  man,  the  real  American,  in  whose  veins 
flow  such  generous  streams  of  French,  Dutch,  Irish, 
Scotch,  Welsh,  German,  and  Scandinavian  blood. 
No  critical  scholar  can  to-day  accept  the  old  notion, 
almost  crystallized  in  a  sacred  tradition,  that  before 
the  Revolution  “  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  New  Eng¬ 
landers  were  of  English  descent.” 

From  the  very  first,  ecclesiastics  and  economists 
began  to  attempt  the  making  of  the  American  col¬ 
onies,  that  were  already  cosmopolitan  in  texture  and 
spirit,  a  second  England,  instead  of  even  a  second 
United  Kingdom  —  wherein  were  the  unconquer¬ 
able  Scots,  who  kept  their  church  and  law  forms ;  the 
valiant  Welsh,  who  never  gave  up  their  inherited 

226 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

culture;  and  the  Irish,  both  of  Ulster  and  the  South, 
among  whom  N  orman  feudalism  never  took  root.  In 
America,  these  belated  Norman  ideas  would  not 
work  any  more,  but  vastly  less,  than  in  Ireland, 
Scotland,  and  Wales. 

The  absurdity  of  trying  to  establish  the  Anglican 
machinery  of  religion,  when  relatively  there  were 
only  a  few  hundred  English  people,  or  conformists, 
in  the  colony  of  New  York,  was  attempted  and  ob¬ 
stinately  persevered  in,  only  to  meet  with  hatred, 
defiance,  and  defeat.  The  overwhelming  majority  of 
Free  Churchmen  were  desperately  determined  not 
to  wear  the  Anglican  fetters.  The  spirit  of  the  Beg¬ 
gars,  of  the  men  of  the  Half  Moon,  of  the  Walloons 
and  the  Huguenots,  of  the  Waldenses,  of  the  Swiss 
—  who  had  humbled  Charles  the  Bold  —  when 
challenged  and  affronted,  kept  rising.  Those  who 
counted  all  gain  but  loss,  in  order  to  keep  conscience 
free,  were  unitedly  against  the  schemes  of  absentee 
landlords  and  of  over-sea  prelates  bound  to  a  throne, 
and  these  protesting  elements  were  as  a  unit  in  their 
resistance. 

On  the  economic  side,  the  people  of  the  hinterland 
were  infuriated  at  the  English  monopolies,  which 
were  centralized  on  lower  Manhattan.  When  British 
manufacturers,  using  the  power  of  Parliament  and 
the  Crown,  first  ruined  the  Irish  manufacturers  and 
then  attempted  to  smother  the  infant  industries  of 
the  colonists,  the  effect  was  to  breed  a  spirit  of 
sullen  determination  and  invincible  resistance.  This 


227 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


false  theory  led  to  emigration  from  North  Ireland  to 
America,  on  a  large  scale,  giving  our  fathers  a  tre¬ 
mendous  reinforcement,  especially  on  the  frontiers. 

When,  further,  the  English  governor,  among  peo¬ 
ple  who  from  the  invention  of  printing  and  long  be¬ 
fore  Milton’s  voice  was  heeded  in  England  had  glo¬ 
ried  in  a  free  press,  attempted  to  muzzle  the  German 
Zenger’s  newspaper,  the  Scotchman,  Andrew  Ham¬ 
ilton,  championed  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press. 
By  his  learning,  acuteness,  and  eloquence  he  made 
appeal  to  law  that  was  older  than  crowns  or  thrones. 

Zenger  was  acquitted  and  the  Dutch  idea  of  the 
freedom  of  the  press  was  fixed  and  later  secured  in 
the  national  constitution.  The  first  amendment  to 
this  fundamental  law  reads:  “Congress  shall  make 
no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or 
prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof,  or  abridging  the 
freedom  of  speech  or  of  the  press,  or  the  right  of 
the  people  peaceably  to  assemble  and  to  petition  the 
government  for  a  redress  of  grievances.’ * 

Without  a  knowledge  of  the  interior  life  and  work¬ 
ing  of  the  Reformed  Dutch  Church,  with  which 
most  of  the  Walloons  and  French  Huguenots  and 
many  other  immigrants  coalesced,  whose  constitu¬ 
tion  seems  a  miniature  of  that  of  the  United  States 
of  1787,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  understand  the  in¬ 
ner  history  of  the  colony  named  successively  Nova 
Belgica,  New  Netherland,  and  New  York.  This  is 
true  as  simple  matter  of  fact,  for  the  people  of  the 
great  city  and  State  ultimately  divided  themselves 

228 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

socially  less  by  race,  politics,  or  economic  interests, 
than  by  church  affiliations,  into  Dutch,  French,  and 
English.  He  cannot  be  at  home  in  the  story,  either 
of  the  Empire  State  or  of  Pennsylvania,  who  is  not 
intimately  acquainted  with  these  phenomena. 

The  struggle  against  the  English  governors  and 
prelates  from  1664  to  1705,  and  the  partial  success 
of  episcopacy,  resulted  in  what,  by  the  English  party 
in  the  colony,  was  wholly  undesired  and  unexpected ; 
viz.,  the  obtaining  of  charters  for  their  churches  by 
the  Dutch  —  which  no  others,  outside  of  the  Episco¬ 
pal  establishment,  were  able  to  secure  —  with  later 
the  establishment  of  Rutgers  College  at  New  Bruns¬ 
wick,  New  Jersey,  and  Union  College  at  Schenec¬ 
tady,  New  York. 

Such  a  view  of  the  facts  helps  to  explain  not  only  a 
half-century  of  Leislerism,  but  also  the  craving  for 
that  union  of  all  the  colonies,  which  originated  in 
the  Middle  Region,  of  which  Jacob  Leislerwas  the 
champion  whose  example  Benjamin  Franklin  did 
but  follow. 

After  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  which  were 
much  like  those  of  the  old  Dutch  Republic,  there  is¬ 
sued  the  Constitution  of  1787.  This,  with  its  system 
of  checks  and  balances  in  government,  seems  nigh  to 
perfection ;  yet  every  one  of  its  federal  precedents 
is  borrowed,  with  vast  improvements,  from  those 
of  the  United  States  of  the  Netherlands.  Franklin, 
Madison,  Hamilton,  and  Jefferson,  even  in  their 
criticisms  and  rejection,  in  1787,  of  the  outworn 

229 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Dutch  system,  confess  great  obligations,  theirs  and 
ours.  Apart  from  numerous  passages  in  their  own 
writings,  one  has  but  to  read  “The  Federalist”  to 
see  this.  There  was  no  blind  copying,  but  selection. 

When,  to  cite  one  of  many  similar  examples,  the 
English  Governor  Fletcher,  in  March,  1693,  in  an 
angry  speech  to  the  members  of  Assembly,  which 
consisted  mostly  of  Dutch  and  Walloon  members, 
said,  “There  are  none  of  you  but  what  are  big  with 
the  privileges  of  Englishmen  and  Magna  Charta,” 
he  meant,  even  as  his  acts  showed,  that  it  was  upon 
those  principles  of  feudalism,  which  are  embodied  in 
that  noble  document,  rather  than  upon  its  provisions 
for  the  freedom  and  protection  of  villeins,  com¬ 
moners,  or  the  people,  that  he  laid  his  personal  em¬ 
phasis.  The  Netherlanders,  speakers  of  both  French 
and  Dutch,  as  well  as  the  Scotch  and  Germans,  were 
unable  then,  even  as  intelligent  Americans  are  now, 
to  see  the  real  facts  in  the  same  light  as  this  English 
interpreter  of  Magna  Charta.  Fletcher’s  notions 
were  wholly  of  the  conventional  order,  such  as  those 
with  which  after-dinner  orators  even  yet  often  re¬ 
gale,  while  deluding,  their  hearers. 

Fletcher  at  once  proceeded  to  establish  a  State 
Church.  This  enterprise  was  exceedingly  distasteful, 
if  not  insulting,  to  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
non-English  British  folk,  Walloons  and  others;  while 
by  the  Dutch,  especially,  who  were  equally  proud, 
with  the  Anglicans,  of  belonging  to  a  national 
church,  the  innovation  was  directly  and  stoutly  re- 

230 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

sisted.  So  this  relic  of  Latin  centralization  and  Nor¬ 
man  feudalism  was  fastened  only  upon  certain  par¬ 
ishes,  in  four  only,  out  of  the  ten  counties  of  New 
York. 

Furthermore,  what  seemed  positively  ridiculous, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  majority  of  the  people,  was  the  at¬ 
tempt  of  Governor  Fletcher  and  his  successors  to 
inflict  upon  them  and  create  on  American  soil  what 
they  were  thankful,  every  day  of  their  lives,  they 
had  not:  viz.,  a  “  House  of  Lords,  Spiritual  and  Tem¬ 
poral”  in  the  scheme  of  ‘‘King,  Lords,  and  Com¬ 
mons.”  Even  the  idea  of  “  Commons  ”  was  distaste¬ 
ful,  not  only  to  the  non-English,  but  to  the  Puritans. 
These,  in  the  army  of  the  Commonwealth,  had 
changed  the  official  vocabulary  from  “common  sol¬ 
diers”  to  “privates”  —  the  term  now  universal. 

When  the  people  demanded  a  popular  assembly, 
to  make  the  laws  and  vote  the  taxes,  Governor 
Fletcher,  in  his  wrath  at  such  a  demand,  uttered 
words  that  roused  still  more  anger.  Those  who  were 
at  first  sullen  became  defiant.  Said  he: 

“You  ought  to  remember  that  you  have  but  a 
third  share  in  the  legislative  power  of  the  govern¬ 
ment - You  ought  to  let  the  Council  have  a  share. 

They  are  in  the  nature  of  a  House  of  Lords,  or  Upper 
House.” 

All  this  was  exactly  what  the  men  of  New  York 
were  determined  not  to  remember,  but  to  forget. 

Again,  by  aping  the  ways  of  other  unwitting  colo¬ 
nizers  of  America,  Fletcher  and  his  still  more  foolish 

231 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


successor,  Combury,  unknowingly  became  promo¬ 
ters  of  the  further  colonization  of  New  Jersey  and 
helped  to  build  up  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware.  The 
number  of  Dutch  and  Walloon  churches  doubled 
during  the  first  generation  of  English  rule.  When 
Fletcher’s  little  finger  of  oppression  became  Corn- 
bury’s  right  hand  of  autocracy,  and  the  English 
whips  had  become  scorpions,  the  results  were  large 
migrations  into  the  adjoining  Quaker  colony,  where 
was  mild  republican  government. 

New  Jersey,  instead  of  scanty  settlements  of 
the  pioneers,  sailors,  stevedores,  and  longshoremen, 
chiefly  ex-servants  of  the  West  India  Company,  now 
grew  in  population  faster  than  New  York.  There 
went  out  into  the  Raritan  valley,  in  a  total  of  many 
thousands,  in  bands,  caravans,  and  whole  churches, 
communities  of  Walloon  and  Dutch  both,  the  de¬ 
scendants  of  these  lovers  of  freedom  who  wanted 
better  government.  By  these  refined  and  cultivated 
people,  friends  of  religion  and  education,  schools  and 
colleges  were  reared  as  bulwarks  against  both  “the 
puny  skeptic’s  hand”  and  “the  bigot’s  blinded 
rule.”  They  made  the  wilderness  blossom.  New 
Jersey  became  a  garden  state. 

These  people,  thus  “outed  and  expelled,”  thrived 
on  oppression.  Instead  of  there  being  in  1664  four  or 
five  Dutch  churches  —  the  vital  units  of  their  organ¬ 
ization  —  in  which  also  were  most  of  the  Walloons, 
with  services  and  sermons  in  French,  there  were, 
in  the  year  1700,  twenty-nine  Reformed  churches. 

232 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

These  were  under  the  care  of  the  Classis  of  Amster¬ 
dam,  and  a  majority  of  them,  with  a  noble  history, 
exist  to-day.  In  time  the  Walloon  and  Huguenot 
congregations  on  Long,  Staten,  and  Manhattan  Is¬ 
lands,  at  New  Paltz  and  in  the  Hudson,  Mohawk, 
and  Raritan  valleys,  which  had  cordially  fraternized 
with  the  Dutch,  ultimately  coalesced  with  them. 
Still  later,  a  large  number,  more  especially  of  Hu¬ 
guenots,  coming  in  directly  from  France  or  from  the 
West  Indies,  became  Episcopal  and  adopted  the 
Prayer  Book  and  Anglican  ritual.  ^Esop’s  parable  of 
the  storm  and  the  sunshine,  the  traveler  and  his 
cloak,  was  again  illustrated.  It  was  the  intimate 
knowledge  of  economic  conditions  in  the  West  Indies 
that  enabled  so  many  Huguenots,  in  both  the  colonies 
and  the  States,  to  become  wealthy  merchants,  such 
as  Faneuil,  Gerard,  Hilligas,  and  scores  of  others. 

During  the  Revolution,  no  body  of  Christians  ex¬ 
celled  those  in  the  Reformed  churches  in  furnishing 
soldiers  to  the  Continental  armies;  nor,  in  proportion 
to  their  numbers,  more  patriotic  chaplains  and  min¬ 
isters —  with  a  British  price  set  on  their  heads.  To 
scan  the  lists  of  the  official  records  of  militia  and  reg¬ 
ular  troops  bearing  French,  Dutch,  German,  Swiss, 
Scotch,  Welsh,  and  Irish  names,  is  an  inspiration. 
The  roster  foreshadowed  Distinctive  America,  and 
the  fusing  of  all  minor  elements  into  one  nobler 
mould  for  a  State  supreme,  with  a  spirit  of  tolerance 
and  compromise  that  was  to  react  first  upon  the  col¬ 
onies  and  then  upon  the  nation  at  large. 

233 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


The  idea  of  “  the  people’ ’  as  a  constituent  part,  or 
officially  recognized  entity,  was  not  unknown  in 
America  outside  of  New  England.  In  reality,  the 
first  occurrence,  in  any  American  legal  document,  of 
the  phrase,  “the  people,”  was  in  the  Charter  of  Liber¬ 
ties  granted  by  the  Duke  of  York  to  his  new  colony, 
amid  the  rejoicings  of  the  Manhattanese  and  the  in¬ 
terior  folks.  The  man  who  was  to  become  James  II 
of  England  affixed  his  signature  September  17,  1683, 
to  the  Charter  of  Liberties,  and  commented  favor¬ 
ably  upon  it.  He  even  promised  further  privileges. 
The  text  of  this  state  paper  reads: 

“The  supreme  legislative  authority  under  His 
Majesty  and  His  Royal  Highness,  James,  Duke  of 
York,  Albany,  etc.,  Lord  Proprietor  of  said  province, 
shall  forever  reside  in  the  governor,  council,  and  the 
people  met  in  general  assembly.” 

Yet  what  Stuart  sovereign  ever  kept  a  promise,  or 
cared  for  truth?  On  February  6,  1665,  the  Duke  be¬ 
came  a  king.  The  Charter  was  first  kept  in  London, 
and  then,  by  secret  instructions  to  Governor  Don- 
gan,  dated  May  29,  1686,  “repealed  and  disallowed.” 
This  Irish  Catholic  Christian  gentleman,  noble 
statesman,  and  wise  governor,  who  had  made  “the 
people”  so  happy  by  telling  them  of  the  gracious 
favor  of  his  master,  was  left  in  the  lurch,  to  explain 
a  royal  perjuror’s  acts  as  best  he  could. 

Yet  there  are  those  who  wonder  at  Leisler’s  “  usur¬ 
pation”  and  the  tremendous  popular  feeling,  Dutch 
and  Huguenot,  that  was  behind  him,  persisting 

234. 


THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST 

through  generations.  The  staunch  loyalty,  during 
the  Revolution,  to  the  Continental  Congress,  of  the 
pastors  of  these  churches,  in  which  the  people  elected 
their  own  officers,  and  in  which  the  spirit  of  de¬ 
mocracy  was  unquenchable,  surprised  the  London 
statesmen,  who  threw  on  others  the  odium  of  failure 
in  the  “Scotch  War.” 

On  the  purely  social  side  of  the  question,  whether 
the  “  English  conquest”  was  nominal  or  real,  or  New 
York  was  ever,  in  any  but  a  very  nebulous  sense  of 
the  term,  an  English  colony,  one  has  but  to  read  a 
book  full  of  inside,  non-official,  but  none  the  less  real 
history,  like  “The  Goede  Vrouw  of  Mana-ha-ta,”  by 
Mrs.  John  Van  Rensselaer,  to  realize  what  little  im¬ 
press  English  insular  notions,  methods,  and  manners 
made  upon  the  cosmopolitan  people  of  New  York. 
“The  History  of  the  City  of  New  York  in  the  Seven¬ 
teenth  Century,”  by  Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rensselaer, 
gives  in  accurate  and  judicial  form  a  clear  picture  of 
the  noble  addition  made  to  the  American  composite 
by  the  better  sort  of  English  people,  who  came,  not 
in  overweening  pride,  “to  tarry  for  a  night,”  or  until 
sufficient  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence  had  been 
scooped  into  their  coffers,  but  who,  with  gifts, 
graces,  character,  and  sterling  virtues,  enriched  the 
Empire  commonwealth. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER? 

Was  Jacob  Leisler  a  German?  I,  for  one,  believe  he 
was  a  Walloon.  This  successful  merchant,  far-seeing 
statesman,  who  first  proposed  a  union  of  all  the  colo¬ 
nies  —  eminent  Christian,  church  officer,  champion 
of  the  people,  unsleeping  foe  of  monopoly,  victim  of 
a  drunken  governor  and  his  parasites  but  justified 
by  Parliament  and  vindicated  by  posterity  and  his¬ 
tory  —  has  been  called  by  the  prejudiced  and  igno¬ 
rant,  a  “usurper”  and  a  “low-lived  German.”  Can 
we,  amid  the  fog  and  storm  of  hate  on  the  one  side, 
and  excess  of  adulation  on  the  other,  distinguish  the 
true  lineaments?  Perhaps  we  may  better  ask,  “Has 
not  the  storm  cleared?” 

Frankfort,  in  Protestant  Germany,  was  a  notable 
rendezvous  for  the  refugees,  seeking  “freedom  to 
worship  God,”  whether  from  the  Marian  persecu¬ 
tions  in  England,  or  from  despotic  France  and  the 
Spanish  Netherlands.  In  Germany  these  exiles  took 
German  names  from  choice,  by  adoption,  or  by 
translation  or  transliteration  of  their  own,  and  be¬ 
came  as  German  as  the  natives.  Among  others  was  a 
minister  of  the  gospel,  supposed,  without  any  proof, 
by  later  writers  to  be  “a  German.”  In  all  probabil¬ 
ity,  according  to  the  general  and  persistent  belief 
among  those  who  knew  them  best,  the  Leislers, 

236 


STATUE  OF  JACOB  LEISLER 
At  New  Rochelle,  N.  Y. 


WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER? 


father  and  son,  were  of  the  Huguenot  faith  and  from 
the  Belgic  Netherlands,  or  France.  The  ruins  of  the 
old  French  Reformed  or  Huguenot  Church  in  Frank¬ 
fort  may  still  be  seen  between  the  Catholic  and  Prot¬ 
estant  church  edifices  of  to-day.  There  is  also  a 
“  Walloon  Strasse,"  or  street. 

How  Jacob's  early  life  was  spent  we  do  not  know. 
Like  so  many  young  men  of  adventurous  spirit,  in  the 
days  when  the  soldier  of  fortune  was  a  social  prod¬ 
uct,  his  trade  reckoned  honorable  and  his  figure  a 
prominent  one  in  many  countries,  and  when  America 
was  the  Land  of  Promise,  Jacob,  going  to  Holland, 
enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  West  India  Company. 
He  took  passage  in  the  ship  Otter,  sailing  April  24, 
1660,  for  New  Netherland.  In  the  list  of  soldiers,  his 
name  is  written  “Jacob  Leysseler  of  Francfort,"  but 
his  clearly  read  autograph  appears  as  “Jacob  Leis- 
ler.”  When  on  Manhattan,  he  found  himself  in¬ 
debted  to  the  Company  for  passage  and  extras  to  the 
extent  of  nearly  one  hundred  florins.  So,  like  tens  of 
thousands  of  other  settlers  in  the  Middle  Colonies 
and  even  in  New  England,  beginning  with  the  Pil¬ 
grims,  he  was  an  “engage,"  or  “redemptioner." 

Yet  he  lived  to  become  a  man  of  wealth  and  sta¬ 
tion.  He  was  most  probably  “illiterate"  only  in 
English,  which  was  then  spoken  by  a  small  number 
of  people  in  New  York.  Unfortunately  for  religion, 
the  ministers  —  who,  alas,  are  usually  too  apt  to  fa¬ 
vor  the  pew-renting,  salary-paying,  well-to-do  part 
of  society  —  were,  in  the  main,  against  Leisler.  One 

237 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


of  the  Dutch  Domines  he  called  a  “cockeran.” 
This  showed  that  Leisler  the  layman  was  not  versed 
in  the  minutiae  of  those  incessant  controversies  that 
curse  the  church.  In  the  Republic,  Vcetius  and  Coc- 
ceius,  or  Voet  and  Koch,  were  at  that  time  in  the 
cock-pit.  Those  who  have  looked  on  their  portraits 
at  Leyden  University  and  read  Dutch  ecclesiastical 
history,  or  one  of  the  few  good  books  in  English  on 
“The  Reformed  Church  in  the  Netherlands  ”  —  for 
example,  Maurice  G.  Hansen’s  sketch,  which  is  the 
best  of  any  of  the  kind  on  this  subject  —  will  see 
how  the  virus  of  controversy  penetrated  even  to  the 
women,  and  was  exhibited  particularly  at  the  parlor 
windows  on  Sunday  afternoons.  One,  Voet,  repre¬ 
sented  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  and  ultra-orthodoxy. 
Koch,  the  liberal,  introduced  the  newer  school  of 
biblical  criticism,  and  held  non-Hebrew  and  non- 
Puritan  ideas  about  the  Sabbath,  which  were  con¬ 
sidered  “loose”  by  opponents.  In  a  word,  here  was 
a  phase  of  controversy  as  old  as  Cain  and  Abel,  and 
as  new  as  the  present  year,  and  which  will  never 
cease  while  knowledge  so  rapidly  grows  and  human 
nature  is  so  slow  to  improve. 

All  these  controversies  affected  thousands  of  the 
Walloons  in  the  Dutch  Republic.  It  was  largely 
through  their  mediating  spirit,  influence,  and  writ¬ 
ings,  that  reconciliation  and  peace  were  brought 
about  after  “the  second  eighty  years’  war.” 

These  excitements  in  Patria,  the  Fatherland, 
stirred  mightily  the  Walloons  and  Dutch  in  New 

>  238 


WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER? 


York.  The  controversy  shook  the  Reformed,  of  both 
races  and  languages,  from  the  peach  orchards  below 
Cape  Henlopen  to  the  broom-corn  fields  of  the  Mo¬ 
hawk  flats.  The  records  of  the  synods,  which  were 
held  before  the  final  settlement,  at  Schenectady,  of 
Reverend  Petrus  Tassemacher,  who  was  a  Cocceian, 
while  the  other  four  Dutch  Domines  were  Vcetians, 
show  this.  In  the  case  of  the  young  Domine  on  the 
Mohawk,  his  story  was  soon  told.  The  minions  of 
Louis  XIV  and  “the  King’s  religion”  in  Canada 
stirred  up  the  red  savages  to  burn  the  frontier  village 
and  slaughter  the  inhabitants.  He  was  first  killed 
and  his  body  was  thrown  into  the  blazing  furnace  of 
his  former  home. 

Leisler  was  of  the  old  school  of  orthodoxy,  a  Voe- 
tian,  and  he  behaved  like  other  church  folks;  but  not 
being  versed  in  scholastic  theology,  is  said  to  have 
called  one  of  his  pulpit  opponents  a  “cockeran” 
minister,  when  perhaps  he  meant  to  say  “Cocceian.” 
Yet  if  he  used  the  Dutch,  instead  of  the  latinized 
form  of  Koch’s  name,  his  was  not  much  of  a  sole¬ 
cism.  Moreover,  it  is  likely  that  the  caricatures, 
lampoons,  and  controversial  woodcuts  for  which  the 
Dutch  were  so  famous  had  reached  America.  The 
Dutch  funny  fellows  who  in  1619  chased  hens  in 
Leyden  shouting  “arme  haenen”  (poor  hens)  for 
Arminians  were  quite  capable  of  a  “comic  supple¬ 
ment”  fully  equal  to  those  in  our  American  age  of 
Sunday  newspapers. 

Of  course  such  a  proof  of  “illiteracy”  was  conclu- 

239 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


sive.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  the  Domines  de¬ 
nounced  Leisler,  more  on  account  of  his  lack  of 
scholastic  inerrancy  than  because  of  his  politics.  It 
is  even  quite  possible  that  the  supposed  solecism, 
“cockeran,”  came  first  from  the  lips  of  a  tale-bearer, 
and  not  out  of  Leisler’s  mouth. 

The  probabilities  and  deductions,  from  the  avail¬ 
able  data  in  records  and  testimonies,  favor  the  idea 
that  Jacob  Leisler  was  by  birth  and  inheritance  a 
Walloon.  It  was  the  popular  belief  at  the  time.  In 
his  Introduction  to  the  “History  of  New  Rochelle,’ ’ 
by  Jeanne  A.  Forbes,  Mr.  Caryl  Coleman,  embody¬ 
ing  the  contemporaneous  view  in  Leisler’s  lifetime, 
has  written  of  him  thus:  “A  well-to-do  and  rich 
merchant,  a  man  of  French  ancestry,  but  born  in  Ger¬ 
many  ...  a  pronounced  anti -Jacobin,  with  strong 
democratic  tendencies.” 

Neither  a  polished  courtier,  nor  a  Christian  who 
considered  a  knowledge  of  scholastic  philosophy  nec¬ 
essary  to  faith  or  salvation,  nor  a  fanatic,  nor  a  fool, 
nor  a  usurper,  Leisler  was  the  man  needed  for  the 
hour.  It  was  no  disgrace  that  a  man  of  travel  and  ex¬ 
perience,  able  to  speak  two  languages,  and  who  had 
had  experiences  among  the  Turks,  should  be  deemed 
“illiterate”  by  persons  who  knew  only  one  form  of 
speech.  To  him,  the  overworked  symbol  of  the  cross, 
as  to  Endicott  of  Salem,  was  as  hateful  as  the  green 
flag  of  Islam,  or  the  red  crescent  standard  of  the  Ot¬ 
tomans. 

The  life  in  America  of  Jacob  Leisler  is  well  known. 

240 


WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER? 


The  next  year,  1661,  after  his  arrival,  when  Stuyve- 
sant  discharged  sixscore  soldiers,  most  of  whom  re¬ 
turned  to  Europe,  Leisler  remained  in  the  service. 
From  the  first,  he  was  a  man  of  decided  religious 
views  and  character,  with  an  intense  bitterness 
against  those  political  churches  which  in  God’s  name 
had  ravaged  the  Palatinate,  driven  him  from  home, 
and  put  to  death  men  who  differed  in  opinion.  En¬ 
tering  commercial  life,  he  prospered  greatly  and  mar¬ 
ried  into  one  of  the  families  that  considered  them¬ 
selves  “the  quality.”  Active  and  zealous  in  the 
Church,  he  was  chosen  an  officer,  becoming  first  a 
deacon  and  then  an  elder  in  the  Consistory.  In 
every  way  he  was  a  popular  or  “people’s  man.”  In 
insight,  sympathies,  understanding,  and  average 
abilities,  he  represented  three  fourths  of  the  people. 
He  despised  the  so-called  “aristocracy,”  whether  in 
or  out  of  the  Church,  and  of  both  the  real  and  the 
sham  order.  Unfortunately,  of  the  latter  sort  there 
were  not  a  few  in  that  minority,  of  British  folk  and 
some  others,  that  basked  in  the  favor  of  the  English 
governor  and  his  petty  court.  In  giving  expression 
to  his  feelings,  Leisler  was  sometimes  rather  noisy 
and  ostentatious.  He  imitated  too  closely  his  Eng¬ 
lish  predecessors.  Nor  was  he  a  shining  example  of 
that  tact  and  courtesy  which  we  associate  with  Hu¬ 
guenots.  In  a  word,  under  the  menace  of  French 
conquest  he  repaid  his  enemies  and  those  he  consid¬ 
ered  such  in  their  own  coin. 

None,  more  than  Leisler,  knew  the  danger  from 

241 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


France,  from  Canada,  and  from  the  forces  which, 
outwardly,  in  sheep’s  clothing  wore  religion  as  if 
for  the  salvation  of  souls,  while  inwardly  ravening 
wolves.  None  of  his  predecessors,  Dutch  or  English, 
had  put  or  kept  in  order  the  defenses  of  New  York 
City,  or  of  the  frontiers,  with  an  energy  equal  to  his. 
To  this  the  “Battery,”  in  its  name,  still  bears 
witness.  None  more  vigorously  than  Leisler  dared 
to  attack  and  break  up  the  detestable  monopolies 
governed  from  the  south  end  of  Broadway.  He 
promised,  in  writing,  the  Schenectady  farmers,  that 
he  would  seek  redress  for  them.  When  his  letters 
were  found,  by  the  French  marauders  and  their  sav¬ 
age  allies,  on  the  streets  of  that  village,  they  were 
soaked  in  the  blood  of  those  who  cherished  them  as 
tokens  of  economic  salvation. 

The  possibility,  at  which  his  detractors  sneered, 
became,  on  February  9,  1690,  a  reality,  written  in 
blood  and  fire.  No  one  discerned  so  clearly  the  need 
of  colonial  unity  and  the  impending  dangers  from  a 
raid  from  Canada,  of  savages  whose  lust  for  blood 
was  heated  by  bigotry  and  religious  hate  instilled  in 
them  by  white  men  from  France.  On  all  his  fears 
and  warning,  the  massacre  at  Schenectady  —  Al¬ 
bany  being  saved  only  because  the  intense  cold  di¬ 
verted  attack  —  was  a  commentary  in  red. 

Perhaps  Leisler  was  fanatical  in  his  religious  be¬ 
liefs  and  hatred  of  the  kind  of  Frenchmen  of  1690 
and  the  France  of  Louis  XIV.  He  was  an  intense 
and  fiery  anti-Jacobin  also.  But  why?  Not  because 

242 


WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER? 


he  was  a  “German,”  as  Bancroft  and  most  of  the  en¬ 
cyclopaedias  and  their  copyists  say  he  was,  for  it  is 
most  probable  that  he  was  not.  Besides  Dutch,  Ger¬ 
man,  and  a  little  English,  his  speech  was  French. 
But  then,  he  knew  well  what  most  discerning  men 
saw  also,  that  for  the  French  to  conquer  would  be 
to  turn  America  into  the  kind  of  France  that  then 
existed.  Under  that  despotism  of  priestcraft,  people 
were  hunted  down  like  wild  beasts,  and  then  tor¬ 
tured  or  killed,  or  chained  to  the  galley’s  oar,  be¬ 
cause  they  had  a  conscience  and  worshiped  God  in 
a  different  way  from  a  colossal  egotist,  who  then 
called  himself  “The  State,”  and  from  his  fellow 
murderers.  Had  Louis  XIV  succeeded  in  capturing 
New  York,  the  poor  Huguenot  women  would  have 
been  made  slaves  and  the  men  sent  to  the  galleys  to 
spend  their  lives  in  exile  and  drudgery.  The  litera¬ 
ture  of  men  who  had  toiled  in  the  galleys,  includ¬ 
ing  John  Knox,  and  who  wrote  out  their  experi¬ 
ences,  help  us  to  know  how  the  Huguenots  of  1690 
felt. 

Leisler  was  determined  to  defend  the  New  York¬ 
ers  against  both  the  English  traitor-king,  James  II, 
and  the  gilded  tyrant,  Louis  XIV.  He  had  the  peo¬ 
ple  behind  him  and  they  looked  to  him  as  their  pro¬ 
tector.  If  we  range  the  ministers  of  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
formed  Church  against  him,  as  history  records  and 
compels  us  to  do,  it  is  because  in  their  pride  of  educa¬ 
tion  and  love  of  learning  they  opposed  Leisler  more 
because  he  was  “illiterate,”  than  on  account  of  his 

243 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


politics.  Moreover,  rough  as  Leisler  was  in  handling 
his  enemies,  he  never,  like  them  towards  him, 
thirsted  for  blood. 

In  fact,  to  sift  the  whole  matter,  the  opposition  to 
Leisler  was  almost  entirely  personal.  The  “  quality  ” 
felt  that  one  of  their  number  ought  to  have  Leisler’s 
place,  even  as  they  envied  his  influence  with  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  people. 

What  was  there,  on  the  other  side,  to  oppose  him, 
and  what  were  the  vengeful  forces  that  finally, 
against  all  law  and  decency,  had  him  put  to  death? 
Of  this  legal  murder  the  English  Parliament  after¬ 
ward  disapproved,  reversed  the  attainder,  and  vin¬ 
dicated  Leisler,  doing  him  just  honor.  We  repeat 
that  whatever  Leisler’s  faults,  he  had  none  of  the 
bloodthirstiness  of  his  enemies,  who,  by  pressure 
brought  upon  the  English  governor  when  in  his  cups, 
secured  his  death.  The  precedents  of  1676  and  1682, 
in  Virginia,  of  the  royal  governor's  not  waiting  for 
the  king’s  order,  when  thirty-seven  men  were  put  to 
death  by  this  English  officer,  was  followed  in  Man¬ 
hattan  in  1690. 

Neither  martyr  nor  villain,  nor  a  “usurper," 
Leisler  both  in  his  life  and  in  his  death  wrought  a 
great  work  for  American  freedom,  law,  and  order. 
For  thirty  years  after  his  death,  both  parties,  named 
for  or  against  him,  rendered  it  harder  and  ever  more 
difficult  for  English  governors  to  try  to  make  of  New 
York  a  land  of  belated  feudalism,  or  a  new  England 
of  the  kind  that  was  increasingly  obsolescent  in  the 

244 


WHO  WAS  JACOB  LEISLER*? 


old  Mother  Land.  Leisler’s  life  and  death  worked 
for  the  constant  ascendency,  in  the  social  and  politi¬ 
cal  world,  of  the  once  despised  lower  classes  —  who 
needed  only  education  and  pure  religion  to  rise 
higher  in  the  scale. 

From  one  point  of  view,  the  history  of  the  United 
States  shames  England;  from  another,  it  is  Eng¬ 
land’s  glory.  Leisler  wrought  for  the  best  British  ele¬ 
ments,  which  we  Americans  love  and  emulate,  and 
against  the  worst,  which  we  hate  and  will  not  have. 
Furthermore,  what  was  of  benefit  to  New  York  re¬ 
acted  on  all  the  colonies,  even  as  the  spirit  and  tem¬ 
per  of  the  four  Middle  States,  built  on  the  old  Nova 
Belgica  and  New  Netherland,  affected  for  good  the 
nation,  when  in  1726  it  became  independent.  There 
was  no  colony  that  surpassed  New  York  in  the  power 
of  public  opinion,  nor  any  that  in  the  initial  consti¬ 
tution  as  a  State  excelled  her  in  guaranteeing  abso¬ 
lute  freedom  of  religion  to  all. 

On  the  scaffold,  forgiving  his  murderers,  Jacob 
Leisler  proved  himself  a  Christian  beyond  ‘‘name,  or 
form,  or  ritual  word,”  and 

“  Like  Him  with  pardon  on  his  tongue 
In  midst  of  mortal  pain, 

He  prayed  for  them  that  did  the  wrong.” 

For  two  centuries  the  name  of  Leisler  has  been  the 
target  of  malignant  abuse  and  misrepresentation. 
Yet  in  our  day,  Leisler ’s  memory  has  been  cleared  by 
some  of  the  descendants  of  the  very  men  who  had 
him  hanged.  The  late  Dr.  A.  G.  Vermilye,  of  Wal- 

245 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


loon  and  Huguenot  ancestry,  by  his  discussion  of 
the  episode,  made  useless  all  previous  controversy. 
Leisler’s  statue  in  bronze  at  New  Rochelle  adorns 
the  place  of  which  he  made  a  peaceful  haven  for  the 
victims  of  French  fury. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
WALLOONS  BECOME  FRENCHMEN 

It  may  puzzle  the  average  person  whose  historical 
reading  is  defective,  to  discriminate  between  “Wal¬ 
loon”  and  “Huguenot,”  as  these  terms  are  com¬ 
monly  used.  The  distinction  is  akin  to  that  between 
Pilgrim  and  Puritan,  and  in  phases  of  religion  they 
are  without  a  real  difference.  In  both  cases  these 
speakers  of  the  French  and  of  the  English  language, 
respectively,  and  in  all  four  instances,  held  to  the 
one  faith.  The  needless  confusion  is  like  that  of 
the  alleged  “conflict”  between  “science”  and  “relig¬ 
ion” —  which  is  one  purely  of  human  limitations 
and  interpretations  of  the  same  concept  which  in¬ 
cludes  both.  It  is  as  near  the  truth  as  to  talk 
about  the  “warfare”  between  “chemistry”  and 

i  i  •  j  j 

science. 

Because  some  Belgic  Walloons,  already  Hugue¬ 
nots,  became,  under  the  dictates  of  autocracy  and 
diplomacy,  subjects  of  the  France  of  Louis  XIV, 
there  has  been  generated  more  confusion  —  as  if  the 
boundaries  of  countries  in  Europe  were  changeless. 
After  the  struggle  of  arms,  directed  by  Louis  XIV, 
this  royal  specimen  of  conceit  incarnate,  it  was  de¬ 
creed  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  1713,  that  one  of 
the  finest  and  richest  areas  in  “the  Spanish  Nether¬ 
lands,”  or  Belgic  Land,  was  to  be  annexed  to  France 

247 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


and  to  become  later  the  D6partement  du  Nord  — 
the  third  richest  and  most  populous  of  the  French 
administrative  units. 

Hence  the  puzzle  of  the  average  man,  more  or  less 
familiar  with  the  colonial  history  of  New  York,  to 
find  on  the  map  of  France  those  cities  of  Avesnes, 
Arras,  Valenciennes,  Douai,  Malplaquet,  Lille,  with 
many  towns  and  villages,  which  were  so  long  associ¬ 
ated  with  both  “Belgian”  history  and  the  founding 
of  New  Netherland.  Yet  the  Huguenot  Walloons, 
whether  Netherlanders  or  Frenchmen,  Spanish  or 
Gallic  subjects,  were  the  same  in  blood  and  faith  and 
sterling  character. 

Hence  also  the  references  in  documents  to 
“French”  churches  in  the  Dutch  Republic,  in  the 
British  Isles,  and  in  the  German  Palatinate;  whose 
formation  was  in  the  sixteenth,  not  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  whose  members  were  almost  wholly 
Walloons,  or  Belgians!  There  are  thousands  of 
Americans,  versed  in  popular  but  uncritical  notions 
of  genealogy,  who  imagine  they  are  descended  from 
Gallic  instead  of  Walloon  ancestors. 

In  a  word,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
of  Belgic  stock  and  speaking  French  were  made 
Frenchmen.  In  this  transfer,  willy  nilly,  of  the  al¬ 
legiance  of  wealthy  and  industrious  people,  the 
French  royal  autocrat  excelled  the  Spaniard,  or  the 
Turk,  in  the  deviltry  of  his  oppression  and  persecu¬ 
tion.  The  aim  and  purpose  of  the  Grand  Monarch, 
urged  on  even  more  by  his  colossal  vanity  than  by 

248 


THE  WALLOON  CHURCH  IN  AMSTERDAM 


WALLOONS  BECOME  FRENCHMEN 


rancor  of  religion,  so-called,  was  to  become  the  un¬ 
questioned  master  of  the  souls  as  well  as  the  bodies 
of  men. 

In  this  aim,  he  was  baffled  by  thousands  of  the 
brave,  who  refused  to  sell  their  consciences,  or  their 
birthright  of  faith.  Those  not  chained  to  the  oar,  or 
coerced  into  nominal  conformity,  sought  to  escape. 
In  disguise,  in  peat  boats,  or  in  carts  under  hay 
or  grain,  in  ships’  holds,  or  on  springless  wagons 
through  the  darkness,  on  rafts,  or  by  swimming  riv¬ 
ers,  they  took  the  risk.  Aided  by  friendly  brutes  or 
men,  they  fled  by  thousands. 

Not  a  few,  even  when  wounded  by  bullet  shots  or 
sword  blows,  or  tracked  by  bloodhounds,  passed  the 
frontiers.  The  “underground  railroad”  was  no  new 
thing  when  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  dug  or 
built  for  the  black  slave  escaping  from  the  cotton 
fields  or  indigo  swamps,  in  America. 

On  American  soil  in  an  earlier  epoch,  however,  the 
road  to  freedom  was  not  towards  the  North  Star, 
but  in  the  direction  of  the  Southern  Cross  —  from 
New  France  or  Canada  into  New  York  and  New 
England. 

Comparatively  few  were  the  flights  made  directly 
from  France  to  America,  the  land  of  freedom.  In 
overwhelming  majority  the  refugees  made  haven  by 
way  of  the  Rhine,  the  Dutch  Republic,  Great  Brit¬ 
ain,  or  the  Caribbean  Isles.  Then  the  Huguenots, 
whether  Belgian  Walloon  or  Protestant  French, 
flowed  together  in  one  stream.  Hence,  after  A.D. 

249 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 

1713,  the  distinctive  story  of  the  fugitive  Walloons 
as  Belgic  folk  comes  to  an  end. 

In  the  same  manner  and  for  the  same  reason,  the 
Pilgrim  story  after  1690  loses  distinction  from  that 
of  the  Puritan  —  both  to  be  virtually  forgotten  for 
nearly  two  centuries,  but  to  rise  to  the  resurrection 
of  recognition  and  glory  after  1750.  By  that  time, 
the  old  homes  of  Bradford,  Brewster,  and  Robinson 
at  Scrooby  and  Austerfield  had  been  discovered 
with  the  aid  of  the  Yorkshire  historian,  Reverend 
John  Hunter.  In  the  researches  of  the  Dutch  pas¬ 
tors  Kist  and  Scheffer  among  the  documents  in 
Dutch  archives,  the  story  of  the  English  Separa¬ 
tists  stood  forth  plain  and  detailed. 

'  The  tens  of  thousands  of  her  best  people  whom 
France  exiled  in  the  name  of  God  found  homes  in 
Germany,  Sweden,  Switzerland,  Denmark,  the  Brit¬ 
ish  Isles,  and  in  South  Africa.  More  numerously 
than  elsewhere,  they  fled  into  the  Dutch  Republic, 
thence  across  the  Atlantic  to  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
Virginia,  and  South  Carolina.  They  brought,  for  the 
making  of  the  American  Commonwealth,  the  great¬ 
est  wealth  that  to  any  country  is  conceivable  —  the 
riches  of  good  and  intelligent  men  and  women  of 
character,  industry,  and  culture. 

In  Germany  to  the  number  of  thirty  thousand  or 
more  they  enriched  the  realm  with  new  trades  and 
industries,  and  soon  made  the  region  desolated  by 
the  armies  of  Louis  XIV  blossom  again.  In  Berlin, 

250, 


WALLOONS  BECOME  FRENCHMEN 


given  at  first  the  royal  stables  to  live  in,  these  Hu¬ 
guenots,  of  1672  and  later,  came  to  dwell  in  palaces 
and  became  more  Prussian  than  the  Prussians  them¬ 
selves.  Yet  they  kept  up  preaching  and  worship  in 
French,  even  to  their  quarter-millennial  celebration 
in  July,  1922. 

Even  yet  many  Europeans  wonder  why  it  is  that 
the  United  States  of  America  is  so  rich  in  money  and 
brains,  with  free  religion  and  self-government;  but 
history  makes  it  plain. 

While  these  Huguenot  refugees  were  from  every 
part  of  France,  the  majority  came  from  Normandy 
and  what  is  now  the  Departement  du  Nord,  much  of 
it  being  formerly  Belgic  Land,  so  that  of  the  whole 
number  of  Huguenot  refugees  in  America,  from 
1600  to  1700,  the  Walloons  probably  formed  at 
least  one  third,  and  possibly  one  half. 

One  may  ask,  “  How  did  so  many  Huguenots,  who 
were  very  poor,  secure  passage  across  the  Atlantic?  ” 
The  answer  is,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  poverty- 
stricken  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  Massachusetts  who  were 
“redemptioners,”  like  the  poor  Walloons,  to  the  sev¬ 
eral  colonies,  or  like  the  Germans  in  Pennsylvania; 
that  is,  they  paid  later  by  their  toil,  when  in  America, 
for  land-transit  in  Europe  and  for  their  sea-outfit 
and  ocean  passage,  with  years  of  work  for  those  who 
had  sent  them  out.  Their  services  were  mortgaged. 
They  “redeemed”  or  bought  themselves  back  by 
paying  or  working  out  their  debt  to  their  masters  — 
whom  we  of  to-day  should  call  capitalists.  Yet  many 

251 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


of  the  refugees  from  the  West  Indies  were  persons  of 
wealth,  and  possibly  a  majority  of  American  for¬ 
tunes,  before  1800,  made  in  commerce,  were  amassed 
by  the  Huguenot  merchants. 

The  French,  in  sending  colonies  to  the  “West  In¬ 
dies,’  ’  especially  to  the  island  of  St.  Christopher,  or 
St.  Kitts,  were  among  the  first  to  practice  the  cus¬ 
tom  of  “  redemptioning.”  They  called  the  passen¬ 
gers  under  bond  “engages,”  because  their  labor  for 
a  term  of  years  was  previously  mortgaged,  or  en¬ 
gaged,  by  the  ship  owners  or  trading  and  transporta¬ 
tion  companies.  Most  of  the  ancestors  of  the  best 
people  in  the  United  States  were  “redemptioners,” 
even  when  not  called  by  that  name. 

Long  before  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
in  1685,  the  Huguenots  had  been  shut  out  from  Can¬ 
ada  by  the  royal  edicts,  so  that  even  on  this  part  of 
American  soil  they  were  hunted  down  and  deported 
as  if  they  were  vermin.  Between  the  years  1657 
and  1663,  especially,  thousands  of  these  people  came 
from  Canada  into  the  Dutch  and  English  American 
colonies. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
GREATER  WALLOONIA 

Neither  a  description  of  Belgic  Land  nor  an  outline 
of  its  history  would  be  complete,  without  mention  of 
a  certain  piece  of  territory  beyond  the  western  fron¬ 
tier  of  Belgium. 

What  is  now  the  Departement  du  Nord  in  France, 
which,  next  to  that  of  the  Seine,  is  the  richest  and 
most  populous,  was  once  a  part  of  the  Walloon’s 
home  land. 

The  larger  part  of  this  French  territory,  with  its 
rich  cities,  its  prosperous  manufactures,  and  its  af¬ 
fluent  agriculture,  is  inhabited  by  people  whose  an¬ 
cestors  were  Belgic.  In  the  processes,  first  of  covet¬ 
ing  and  then  of  seizing  land,  the  European  sover¬ 
eigns  have  ever  been  past  masters.  It  was  after 
many  tortuous  mazes  of  diplomacy  that  this  region, 
following  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  —  itself  a 
Walloon  city  —  became  part  of  France. 

Louis  XIV  was  the  autocrat  of  all  France  and  her 
possessions  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  In  1690, 
to  please  him  and  his  mistress,  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non,  the  French  of  Canada,  with  their  savage  allies, 
hoped  to  drive  the  English  and  Dutch  out  of  New 
York  and  possess  it  for  France.  Inflamed  with  fanat¬ 
icism  and  lust  for  the  scalps  of  women  and  children, 
they  set  forth  on  snowshoes  in  midwinter,  through 

253 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


the  deep  drifts  and  over  the  long  space  between  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  the  Mohawk  rivers,  hoping  to  cap¬ 
ture  Albany.  Owing  to  the  intense  cold,  they  were 
able  only  to  destroy  the  little  village  of  Schenectady 
and  then  retreat,  pursued  by  the  colonial  militia  and 
the  friendly  Mohawks.  Between  hardships,  hunger, 
and  attack,  only  a  remnant  of  the  raiders  reached 
Canada.  This  was  all  that  came  of  the  plan  con¬ 
cocted  in  Paris  to  conquer  all  New  York.  So  the 
energies  of  the  French  in  America,  led  by  d’Iberville, 
were  directed  to  the  settlement  of  Louisiana. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  province, 
the  Huguenot  refugees  from  their  home  land  and  the 
places  of  their  dispersion  in  Germany  were  pouring 
into  New  York. 

On  the  Western  Atlantic  front,  five  great  sea- 
gates  swung  open  wide  their  portals  to  admit  and 
welcome  so  rich  an  accession  to  the  American  com¬ 
posite.  These  were  at  Boston,  New  York,  Philadel¬ 
phia,  Jamestown,  and  Charleston.  Yet  of  all  these 
premier  seaports,  the  highest  honors  of  entrance, 
welcome  and  hospitality,  belong  to  the  thrice- 
named  city  on  Manhattan  and  to  the  thrice-named 
river,  on  the  bosom  of  which  the  incoming  ships  were 
borne.  Here  their  best  friend,  Jacob  Leisler,  who 
had  already  personally  assisted  Huguenots  with 
money  and  sympathy,  met  them  with  land  pur¬ 
chased  in  their  behalf  and  ready  to  be  occupied  by 
homes. 

As  New  Paltz  in  origin,  character,  and  history  was 

254 


GREATER  WALLOONIA 


the  most  distinctively  Walloon  settlement  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  Empire  State,  so  was  New 
Rochelle  most  notably  that  of  the  French  Hu¬ 
guenots.  With  stirring  memories  of  the  old  city  be¬ 
yond  the  sea,  so  long  the  stronghold  of  brave  defend¬ 
ers  against  intolerance  and  bad  statesmanship,  New 
Rochelle  has  been  celebrated  as  one  of  the  noblest 
types  of  American  municipalities,  wherein  many 
creeds  and  nations  dwell  in  brotherhood. 

Was  it  any  wonder  that,  when  safe  in  America,  the 
Huguenots  debated  whether  their  new  city  of  refuge 
should  receive  the  name  of  New  Rupella  or  New 
Rochelle?  They  would  go  beyond  the  memories  of 
war  and  sieges  and  famine,  to  the  Rock  of  Peace  in 
earlier  days. 

It  was  in  1628  that  the  French  city  fell.  Then  the 
remnant,  that  had  survived  disease,  starvation,  and 
battle,  scattered.  Under  the  same  “ necessity,  the 
tyrant’s  plea,”  for  national  unity  —  as  already  made 
use  of  in  England  to  drive  out  to  exile  the  Pilgrims 
—  France  cast  out  her  children,  to  enrich  Germany 
and  the  United  States  of  America. 

Nevertheless,  amid  all  variations  of  war  and 
peace,  fortune  and  decay,  with  annoyances  as  nu¬ 
merous  as  incredible,  during  the  whole  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  La  Rochelle,  with  the  Aunis  region, 
France’s  smallest  province,  besides  being  until  the 
Revocation  of  1685  the  center  of  Huguenot  life  and 
activity,  is  the  ancestral  home  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  Americans.  Of  the  fifteen  thousand  Huguenots 

255 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


who  entered  Pennsylvania,  of  the  ten  thousand  in 
Virginia,  and  of  a  number  equaling  those  who  set¬ 
tled  in  the  Carolinas  and  a  possibly  equal  total  in 
New  York  and  New  England  —  quite  probably  fifty 
thousand  in  all  before  1750 —  the  majority  could 
trace  their  descent  to  the  towns  and  villages  of  west¬ 
ern  France.  A  large  proportion  of  the  remainder 
were  from  that  northeastern  part  of  the  French 
realm  which  once  was  Walloon  Land. 

Amid  the  annoyances  and  the  disabilities  forced 
on  them,  and  the  obstacles  placed  on  their  crossing 
the  French  frontiers,  those  who  were  left  behind  and 
who  would  not  sell  their  consciences  lived  on  and 
even  formed  “The  Church  in  the  Desert.”  As  se¬ 
cretly  as  the  first  Christians  in  the  Roman  cata¬ 
combs,  but  as  sincerely,  they  worshiped  in  “the  dens 
and  caves  of  the  earth.” 

From  time  to  time,  from  the  toleration  act  of 
Henry  of  Navarre,  there  swarmed  off  from  out  of 
the  old  hive,  colonies  to  other  European  lands,  to 
the  French  West  Indies,  and  into  the  English  colo¬ 
nies  of  America.  The  stories  of  disguise  and  escape 
across  the  frontiers,  as  told  in  reminiscence  around 
the  firesides  in  the  homes  of  what  are  now  the 
United  States,  if  written  down,  would  make  a  vol¬ 
ume  as  thrilling  as  any  of  romance. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  after  the  Revocation  in 
1685  that  the  Huguenots  of  France  left  by  tens  of 
thousands,  as  exiles,  to  find  homes  afar.  The  British 
Isles,  the  Dutch  Republic,  and  the  German  states 

256 


GREATER  WALLOONIA 


were  enriched,  and  so  were  the  West  Indies,  espe¬ 
cially  the  island  of  St.  Christopher,  and  South 
Africa;  but  not  least  among  those  countries  that 
profited  most  by  the  immigrations  were  the  English 
colonies  along  the  Atlantic  front. 

Into  Puritan  Massachusetts,  into  cosmopolitan 
New  Netherland,  under  the  liberal  government  of 
William  Penn,  to  the  rich  soil  of  Virginia  and  into 
the  Carolinas  —  enough  almost  by  themselves  to 
create  a  commonwealth  —  they  came  and  with  wel¬ 
come. 

In  New  York  there  was  both  scattering  and  con¬ 
centration.  Into  the  Long  Island  and  the  Hudson 
River  regions,  thousands  of  them  went  at  once  for 
food  and  shelter,  but  on  the  land  of  Jacob  Leisler 
they  made  their  mark  most  historic,  and  there,  for 
numbers,  was  the  largest  single  permanent  colony 
of  the  Huguenots  in  America. 

On  the  site  of  the  Huguenot  settlement  in  1683  at 
Oxford,  near  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  a  memorial 
in  the  form  of  a  cross  has  been  reared.  Under  the 
persistent  attacks  of  the  savages,  egged  on  by  influ¬ 
ences  from  Canada,  this  frontier  enterprise  was 
abandoned.  Traces  of  the  bastioned  fort  on  the  hill 
remain  to  suggest  that,  even  as  John  Robinson,  the 
Pilgrim  pastor,  taught,  the  best  and  the  worst  may 
be  done  in  the  name  of  religion. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
THE  AMERICAN  WALLOON  DOMINES 

The  first  book  in  the  English  language  published  by 
a  member  of  the  Reformed  Church  in  America  was 
by  Reverend  Lambertus  de  Ronde,  of  Walloon  an¬ 
cestry,  whose  parents  had  named  him  after  the  cele¬ 
brated  seventh-century  saint,  whose  name  is  pre¬ 
served  in  so  many  churches  in  Belgium.  He  had  had 
several  years’  experience  as  a  pastor  in  Surinam, 
where  he  became  warmly  interested  in  the  education 
of  the  black  slaves.  In  1749,  he  wished  to  publish  in 
Negro  English  a  “First  Book  of  Christian  Truths.” 
In  New  Netherland,  he  served  churches  at  New 
York,  Haarlem,  and  Schaghticoke,  New  York.  In 
the  Revolution,  because  he  was  an  intense  American 
patriot  —  as  were  most  ministers  of  Huguenot  or 
Netherlands  ancestry  —  he  was  hunted  and  driven 
away  from  his  own  flock  by  the  British.  During  this 
time,  he  shepherded  the  churches  at  Red  Hook  and 
Saugerties. 

De  Ronde  translated  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  into  Dutch,  and  possibly  also  into 
German,  when,  of  the  thirteen  States,  six  had  al¬ 
ready  adopted  it.  This  was  done  by  order  of  the 
Federal  Committee,  and  his  work  was  published  in 
Albany  in  1788. 

,  De  Ronde ’s  career  in  the  Reformed  churches  was 

258 


THE  AMERICAN  WALLOON  DOMINES 


at  a  time  when  in  the  larger  settlements  the  children 
of  Walloons,  Dutch,  and  Germans  were  talking  Eng¬ 
lish,  and  the  boys,  instead  of  being  sent  to  the  Neth¬ 
erlands  to  be  educated,  went  to  Yale  or  Princeton. 
The  time  had  come  when,  for  safety  and  unity  of  the 
future  United  States,  there  was  to  be  but  one  spoken 
language,  and  the  Huguenots,  Walloons,  and  Dutch 
were  among  the  first,  in  spite  of  some  opposition 
from  the  old  folks,  to  set  the  good  example  of  assimi¬ 
lation.  The  project  of  establishing  what  became 
Rutgers  College  was  broached  as  early  as  1763.  Its 
charter  was  obtained  in  1766. 

During  this  epoch,  when  the  unifying  influences  of 
the  English  speech  and  literature  were  winning  their 
way,  the  controversy  between  the  ministers  of  the 
Ccetus,  or  Progressives,  and  the  Conferentia,  or  Con¬ 
servatives,  rent  the  churches,  French,  Dutch,  and 
German,  in  which  worship  and  sermon  were  in  these 
languages.  Few  to-day  know  even  the  meaning  of 
these  terms.  The  word  Coetus  is  not  in  our  diction¬ 
ary,  but  comes  from  the  Latin  co- and  iri  —  a  coming 
together,  an  assembly  or  company.  Conferentia,  or 
conference,  tells  its  own  story  in  its  form. 

At  bottom  these  terms  in  their  application  con¬ 
noted,  relatively,  what  “Tory”  and  “Whig,”  “Con¬ 
tinental”  and  “Loyalist,”  and  the  more  modem 
“Home  Rule”  and  “Unionist”  signify.  Their  re¬ 
sultant  activities  and  partisanship  sprang  from  the 
same  convictions  and  impulses.  In  church,  in  educa¬ 
tion,  and  in  politics,  Americans  began  to  think  it  was 

259 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


high  time  that  the  churches,  schools,  and  local  gov¬ 
ernment  should  be  free  from  the  direct  control  of  au¬ 
thority  across  the  Atlantic. 

In  theological  education,  especially,  young  men,  it 
was  thought,  should  be  trained  not  in  Europe,  but 
in  America.  Churchmen,  educators,  and  statesmen 
were  all  drifting  towards  unity  of  opinion  in  these 
matters  and,  whether  they  knew  it  or  not,  towards 
ultimate  independence  of  lands  beyond  sea.  Yet 
throughout,  there  was  the  deep-seated  feeling  of 
loyalty  to  the  Mother  Countries. 

Yet  how? 

Surely  not  to  the  Europe  that  was  passing  away 
—  the  old  continent  of  united  Church  and  State,  of 
exclusive  Latin  culture,  of  despots  on  thrones,  of  an¬ 
tiquated  institutions  that  were  but  the  shreds  and 
patches  of  mediaeval  feudalism. 

The  real  deep-seated  loyalty  was  to  the  best  ideas 
and  traditions  of  ancient  freedom  and  to  the  nobler 
principles  generated  by  the  Reformation.  These 
Americans  were  led  on  by  beacon  hopes  of  a  better 
social  order,  a  higher  loyalty  to  their  Master  and 
more  direct  approach  to  their  Creator,  to  an  educa¬ 
tion  that  would  fit  the  rising  generation  for  more  im¬ 
mediately  coping  with  New  World  problems.  They 
wished  their  sons  to  be  trained  for  such  forms  of  gov¬ 
ernment  as  would  mean  less  dependence  on  thrones, 
worn-out  traditions,  and  absentee  rulers,  and  would 
more  strenuously  develop  self-rule  and  fitness  to 
meet  the  political  problems  unknown  to  the  Old 

260 


THE  AMERICAN  WALLOON  DOMINES 


World,  but  insistent  on  the  new  continent  and  im¬ 
mediately  confronting  themselves. 

Dr.  Archibald  Laidlie,  born  in  Scotland,  after  serv¬ 
ing  at  Flushing  in  Zeeland,  preached  in  English  in  the 
Reformed  Church  on  Manhattan  and  revised  the 
English  translation  of  her  impressive  and  beautiful 
liturgy,  as  well  as  the  Belgic  Confession  of  Faith,  into 
what  was  to  be  the  master-speech  of  the  United  States 
and  of  seven  nations  and  may  yet  be  of  the  world. 

Another  of  the  ministers  of  Walloon  descent  in  the 
Reformed  Church,  who  lived  to  be  ninety-two  and 
was  in  active  service  during  seventy-two  years,  was 
Henry  Ostrander.  Born  at  Plattekill,  near  New 
Paltz,  New  York,  March  n,  1781,  he  spent  most  of 
his  life  serving  churches  near  those  mountains  which 
at  sunset  throw  their  shadows  on  the  bosom  of  the 
Hudson.  Living  before  the  presidency  of  Washing¬ 
ton  and  until  1872,  he  linked  in  his  own  life  two  dif¬ 
ferent  periods  of  national  life  and  of  language,  for  he 
could  preach  in  Dutch  or  English,  and  he  wrote  both 
in  fine,  terse  style.  In  him,  boldness  of  spirit  and 
gentleness  of  manner  were  combined. 

Another  minister,  probably  of  the  same  stock  and 
kindred,  Stephen  Ostrander,  born  at  Poughkeepsie 
in  1769,  who  lived  to  be  seventy,  was  a  pioneer 
preacher  among  the  Seneca  Indians  and  in  the 
counties  that  were  still  mainly  forest. 

In  the  Reformed  Church  in  America,  in  the  course 
of  generations,  were  several  notable  families  of  min¬ 
isters  who  could  preach  in  both  Dutch  and  French. 

261 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


In  some  cases,  those  of  Dutch,  Walloon,  or  Huguenot 
stock,  within  three  generations  produced  a  dozen 
or  more  ministers  or  ministers’  wives.  Not  a  few  of 
these  carried  in  the  very  texture  of  their  names,  and 
the  meaning  of  them,  the  symbols  of  movement  and 
of  elasticity  of  spirit,  even  in  the  midst  of  gloom  and 
suffering.  The  name  Vermilye,  which  signifies  from, 
or  out  of  the  midst,  is  a  typical  instance.  Of  these, 
Reverend  Thomas  E.  Vermilye,  born  on  Manhattan 
in  1803,  served  from  1839  to  1893,  *n  the  line  of  pas¬ 
tors  of  the  same  old  “Church  in  the  Fort”  of  1628. 
With  the  advance  of  population,  the  two  new  edifices 
for  the  enlarged  congregations  are  to  be  seen  on  the 
corners  of  Twenty-ninth  Street,  and  of  Forty-eighth 
Street,  on  Fifth  Avenue. 

Reverend  Depuytren  Vermilye  graduated  from 
Rutgers  College  in  1863.  Ashbel  G.,  son  of  Thomas, 
born  at  Princeton  in  1822,  was  pastor  at  Schenec- 
day,  New  York,  from  1871  to  1876.  In  a  large  sense, 
he  was  a  historian  of  his  people,  for  his  profound  and 
polished  paper  on  “The  Huguenot  Element  in  the 
Reformed  Church”  is  a  masterpiece  of  fine  English 
and  of  condensed  history.  In  treating  of  Jacob  Leis- 
ler,  in  an  essay  in  “The  Memorial  History  of  New 
York,”  which  shows  not  only  candor,  generosity, 
breadth  of  mind,  a  finished  style,  and  judicial  poise, 
he  antiquated  (while  emptying  of  slander)  all  pre¬ 
vious  discussions  upon  this  theme.  He  exposed  the 
silliness  and  obscuring  prejudice  which  had  so  long 
befogged  the  subject.  Few  men  in  courtesy,  wit,  and 

262 


THE  AMERICAN  WALLOON  DOMINES 


majestic  personal  appearance  were  better  represen¬ 
tatives  of  the  American  of  Huguenot  descent. 

It  was  on  the  whole  a  cosmopolitan  ministry  that 
served  the  Reformed  Church.  In  its  composition  this 
body  of  Christians  reflected  that  over-sea  Republic 
which,  as  the  prototype  of  the  American,  fed  the 
hungry,  helped  the  needy,  and  welcomed  the  op¬ 
pressed  of  every  land,  clime,  and  creed.  We  find 
among  the  duly  educated,  university-bred,  and  reg¬ 
ularly  ordained  pastors  within  its  bounds,  men  of 
Swiss,  Swedish,  Danish,  German,  French,  Walloon, 
Flemish,  Dutch,  Scotch,  Irish,  Welsh,  and  English 
birth,  besides  the  many  born  on  American  soil.  Most 
of  these  have  shown  themselves  typical  patriots, 
free  from  that  sectionalism  which  has  thrown  its 
blight  over  American  historiography,  making  much 
of  our  national  story  a  caricature  of  reality.  This  lat¬ 
ter  fact  is  clear,  even  in  several  notable  series  of  vol¬ 
umes  from  the  presses  of  eminent  publishers. 

The  last  student  among  hundreds  to  go  to  Patria, 
or  the  Netherlands,  for  a  university  education,  or  for 
his  theology,  at  Leyden  or  Utrecht,  was  John  H. 
Livingston,  born  at  Poughkeepsie  in  1746,  who  was 
graduated  from  Yale  College.  On  his  return  in  1769 
he  became  the  virtual  founder  of  two  institutions, 
both  at  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey.  One  of  these 
makes  claim  to  be  the  oldest  Divinity  School  in 
America.  Rutgers  College  had  already,  in  1766,  been 
chartered,  but  did  not  begin  instruction  until  1770. 
The  strong  motive  underlying  its  founding  was  op- 

263 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


position  to  the  active  propaganda  of  Anglican  State 
Churchism  attempted  on  and  from  Manhattan. 
The  sentiment  of  those  who  nourished  the  beginning 
of  Rutgers  College  was  for  free  choice  in  religion. 

On  every  one  of  freedom’s  battle-fields,  from  the 
War  of  Independence  until  “the  return  of  the  New 
Netherland”  to  Europe  in  1916,  with  the  American 
Expeditionary  Force,  the  blood  of  Alma  Mater’s  sons 
has  crimsoned  the  soil  of  America,  Asia,  and  Europe, 
in  making  with  willingness  “the  supreme  sacrifice.” 
One  of  the  best  known  of  the  six  hundred  forty  sol¬ 
diers  from  Rutgers  and  her  alumni  —  four  hundred 
being  commissioned  officers  in  the  world  war  —  was 
the  promising  young  poet,  Joyce  Kilmer.  In  “the 
victories  of  peace  no  less  renowned  than  war,”  the 
children  of  Rutgers  have  promptly  responded  to  the 
nation’s  call.  No  college,  in  proportion  to  the  num¬ 
ber  of  graduates,  has  sent  out  so  many  teachers  and 
pioneers  of  science  and  religion  to  Asia  and  the  East 
Indies  as  Rutgers  College. 

The  motto  of  Utrecht  University  —  a  monument 
of  the  triumph  of  the  modern  ideas  of  mental  free¬ 
dom  over  the  reactionary  despotism  of  Spain,  and 
also  of  the  victory  of  Calvinism,  with  its  public 
schools,  over  Loyolaism  —  was  Sol  justitice  illustra 
nos;  that  is,  Sun  of  [Divine]  Justice,  shine  on  us  (or 
literally,  rise  with  healing).  To  this,  from  the  Vul¬ 
gate,  Livingston  added,  in  two  words,  a  prayer  on 
behalf  of  America,  et  Occidentem ,  or,  Sun  of  Justice, 
illuminate  also  the  West. 

264 


THE  AMERICAN  WALLOON  DOMINES 


Rutgers  has  ever  been  forward  in  the  new  course 
of  empire.  During  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  most 
of  the  faculty  and  students  were  in  the  Continental 
army.  The  first  graduate,  Simeon  de  Witt,  was  on 
the  staff  of  Washington.  He  laid  out  the  works  at 
Yorktown,  settled  the  boundaries,  and  surveyed 
most  of  the  central  area  of  New  York  State,  when  it 
was  chiefly  forest  land. 

More  than  any  other  college,  Rutgers,  “on  the 
banks  of  the  old  Raritan,”  has  in  the  past  educated 
the  American  sons,  and  in  recent  years  the  daugh¬ 
ters,  who  are  descendants  of  the  Walloons  and  Hu¬ 
guenots.  It  was  into  this  beautiful  river  valley  that 
very  many  of  their  ancestors  emigrated  to  make 
their  homes,  when  the  English  governor  Cornbury, 
of  the  colony  of  New  York,  abused  his  power. 

For  David  de  Forest,  the  Connecticut  pioneer 
(1669-1721)  and  the  large  number  of  his  descend¬ 
ants  at  Stratford  and  in  the  hill  towns,  and  for  the 
record  of  the  de  Forests  in  war  time,  one  must  con¬ 
sult  the  engaging  volumes  of  Mrs.  R.  W.  de  Forest, 
entitled  “A  Walloon  Family  in  America.”  In  the 
various  local  histories  of  the  cities,  towns,  and  vil¬ 
lages  founded  in  Nova  Belgica,  New  Netherland,  or 
New  York,  one  will  find  abundant  proofs  of  the  ster¬ 
ling  qualities  in  this  strain,  which  made  a  decidedly 
perceptible  addition  to  the  American  composite. 
Their  full  story  deserves  a  far  worthier  chronicler 
than  the  present  one,  who  merely  lifts  the  curtain. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
NAMES  IN  TRANSFORMATION 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  about  emigrants 
is  the  frequency  of  their  change  of  names.  Done  in 
every  age,  land,  and  language  —  as  any  one  familiar 
with  his  Bible  knows  —  it  makes  many  puzzles  for 
the  historian. 

For  these  transformations,  from  Abram  to  Abra¬ 
ham  and  from  Jacob  to  Israel,  down  to  Eleazer  into 
Lazarus,  Paul  from  Saul,  and  Joshua  into  Jesus, 
there  is  a  reason,  divine  or  human ;  but  usually  the 
change  is  made  to  make  life  more  easy,  to  save  time 
and  trouble  in  spelling,  pronunciation,  personal  writ¬ 
ing,  official  record,  and  strain  upon  the  vocal  organs. 
Such  a  process  may  also  save  taxes  or  shut  off  too 
close  official  inquiry  or  personal  scrutiny.  Often  the 
transformation  is  a  memorial  of  gratitude.  Even 
in  modern  days,  apart  from  adoption  and  choosing 
namesakes,  the  custom  is  surprisingly  common. 

It  is  laughable,  when  in  the  Dutch  archives,  to 
scan  the  lists  of  betrothals  and  marriages  of  the  Pil¬ 
grims  and  other  Free  Churchmen,  as  written  by 
clerks  who  knew  no  English.  Yet  some  of  the  Pil¬ 
grim  Fathers  took  Dutch  names,  or  wrote  their  au¬ 
tographs  in  forms  easily  read  or  pronounced  by  the 
natives,  to  suit  the  Dutch  ear  and  eye. 

,,  In  the  United  States,  hundreds  of  names  of 

266 


A  \t( 


MAES. 


<369 


1370 


DE  MAHIEU. 


LUYTENS 
(a.nobl.  1627). 


1373 


MACON. 

1377 


DE  MERLE. 

1381 


DE  WINDELE  et 
PE  MAHIEU. 


MAC-DONNEL. 

1373 


1.U58 


DE  LUXEMBOURG 

(baTAHD). 


MAC-NENY. 


LUYTENS 
(vicoste  1730). 


1374 


1382 


MAELCAMP. 

1379 


DE  MAI1Y. 


1372 


VAN  MAEL. 


1378 


MAES. 


1371 


1 383 


1376 


SOME  WALLOON  COATS  OF  ARMS 


NAMES  IN  TRANSFORMATION 


Walloon  and  French  Huguenots,  that  have  passed 
through  the  filters  of  three  countries  and  languages, 
are  almost  unrecognizable,  even  by  experts.  It  is 
amusing  and  interesting  to  compare  the  various 
forms  of  the  same  patronymic,  as  it  is  found  in  Swe¬ 
den,  South  Africa,  Spanish  South  America,  Holland, 
or  in  the  seven  countries  of  English-speaking  people. 
We  are  reminded  of  a  kaleidoscope,  or  of  Joseph’s 
coat  of  many  colors,  or  of  the  old  man  who  heard  the 
voice  of  Isaac  while  feeling  the  hands  of  Esau.  In 
some  cases,  the  result  suggests  a  crazy  quilt.  To  all 
these  obstacles  to  correct  genealogy  is  added  the 
anarchy  which  was  prevalent  before  spelling  was 
harnessed  to  rules,  and  when  often  the  same  per¬ 
son  would  write  his  own  name  in  several  different 
ways. 

Let  us  for  our  recreation  make  an  excursion  into 
comparative  etymology  and  philology.  Belgic  Wal¬ 
loons,  and  French  Huguenots  usually  altered,  trans¬ 
lated,  or  transliterated  their  names,  in  order  to  be  in 
harmony  with  their  environment  and  to  save  men¬ 
tal,  visual,  and  vocal  exertion  on  the  part  of  their 
•  hosts. 

In  the  Dutch  Republic,  to  give  a  few  examples,  le 
Grand  became  de  Groot;  Chevalier,  de  Ruyter;  Du¬ 
mont,  van  den  Berg;  du  Jardin,  Bogaard  or  Bogart; 
Dumoulins,  van  der  Meulen,  etc. 

Other  names,  recognizable  in  both  Dutch  and 
English,  are  Barry,  Bonheur,  Bonny,  Donny,  Emery, 
Hardy,  Peletier,  Brill,  Payne,  Symonds,  Haynes, 

'267 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


Torry,  Vincent,  and  a  hundred  others  we  meet  with 
in  the  telephone  directories. 

When  it  comes  to  the  transformations  to  be  noted 
in  English  and  American,  to  say  nothing  of  Irish, 
Scotch,  and  Welsh  forms,  which  were  originally 
Belgic  or  French,  we  may  count  them  by  the  thou¬ 
sands.  Even  the  ancient  and  classic  names  common 
to  all  Christendom,  such  as  Alexander  and  Peter, 
may  by  human  descent  come  to  us  in  or  from  the 
French  form.  In  fact,  personal  as  well  as  family  ap¬ 
pellatives  suffered  a  “sea  change”  in  crossing  fron¬ 
tiers,  as  well  as  the  briny  deep.  Others  in  the  list  be¬ 
low,  like  Agnew,  Astor,  Avery,  Bailey,  Barr,  Batch- 
elder,  Bean,  Benn,  Briggs,  Chambers,  Clark,  Cop- 
pinger,  Crowley,  Daggott,  Dennis,  Driver,  Fremont, 
Goucher,  Gray,  Hewett,  Jackman,  Jaspar,  Julian, 
Longfellow,  Lovell,  Miles,  Mott,  Neale,  Osier,  Pil¬ 
low,  Perkins,  Patton,  Pearse,  Pettee,  Pickens,  Plum¬ 
mer,  Powell,  Quincy,  Ramey,  Revell,  Rose,  Row¬ 
land,  Seymour,  Spicer,  Terry,  Vernon,  Wallers, 
Dwight  (from  de  Witt),  Bumpus  (from  Bon  Repos), 
etc.,  etc.,  though  so  long  naturalized  as  to  seem  as  if 
grown  on  English  soil,  are  the  names  of  refugees 
from  the  Low  Countries,  or  France.  Most  of  these 
had  taken  their  English  form  before  they  were 
known  in  America. 

Of  the  descendants  of  the  fifteen  thousand  Wal¬ 
loon  or  French-speaking  Huguenot  immigrants  in 
Pennsylvania  alone,  of  Belgic  or  French  stock,  prob¬ 
ably  not  more  than  a  small  fraction  to-day  bear  the 

268 


NAMES  IN  TRANSFORMATION 


original  form  of  the  names  borne  by  their  ancestors 
three  centuries  ago.  The  prefixes  or  suffixes  have 
been  dropped  apparently  without  rule  or  reason. 

De  Foe’s  poem  on  the  “True-Born  Englishman” 
finds  its  counterpart  in  the  United  States,  where  the 
blood  is  as  mixed  as  in  the  Jewish,  the  French,  the 
English,  or  any  other  supposedly  “  pure  ”  but  non-ex¬ 
istent  race,  that  has  migrated  like  a  plant  or  animal. 
The  study  of  names  is  much  like  that  in  qualitative 
chemistry.  On  the  quantitative  side  it  has  been 
shown,  however,  that  of  the  hundred  or  more  mil¬ 
lions  of  people  in  the  United  States,  at  least  fifty-five 
millions  had  American  grandfathers  born  on  the  soil. 
Nevertheless,  probably  with  more  than  half,  except 
in  the  case  of  simple  words  like  Smith,  Brown,  Jones, 
etc.,  the  orthography  of  their  names  differs  from  that 
of  their  ancestors,  whether  known  or  unknown.  The 
most  ordinary  and  many  of  the  rare  names  are  like 
old  garden  plants  that  have  “escaped  from  cultiva¬ 
tion”  and  grown  wild,  developing  new  features  in  a 
new  environment. 

In  the  light  of  this  habit,  it  is  easy  to  accept  and 
believe  the  persistent  and  general  tradition,  held 
contemporaneously  in  New  York,  that  Jacob  Leisler 
was  the  son  of  a  Walloon  or  Huguenot  pastor,  who  in 
Frankfort  had  changed  his  name,  giving  it  a  German 
form,  as  did  thousands  of  the  refugees,  who  became 
even  more  German  than  the  native  born  in  the 
Palatinate. 

Without  pretense  of  unraveling  the  many  strands 

269 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


of  ancestry,  that  have  entered  into  the  well-woven 
texture  of  the  American  of  Walloon  descent,  making 
him  what  he  is,  an  alien  has  the  right  of  giving 
the  results  of  observations  in  the  southern  Belgic 
provinces.  Even  he  can  in  most  cases,  among  the 
peasants  at  least,  discern  the  differences  between 
Fleming  and  Walloon.  At  the  market  and  in  the 
fields,  in  the  factories  and  shops,  one  has  a  good 
opportunity  to  study  faces,  figures,  actions,  and 
speech.  The  modern  Walloon,  as  I  have  seen  him 
at  home,  is  “ stocky,”  thick-set  in  figure,  and  of  a 
swarthier  complexion,  with  blue  or  brown  eyes.  He 
is  more  quickly  emotional,  easily  roused,  interested, 
or  excited,  but,  sooner  than  the  Fleming,  regains  his 
mental  equilibrium.  Not  only  in  the  ditties  heard 
at  labor,  but  in  the  talk  of  men  and  women,  there  is 
a  sort  of  sing-song  cadence.  As  a  rule,  the  Walloon 
creature  of  either  sex  is  gayer,  merrier,  and  more 
prone  to  extremes  in  his  mirth  and  pleasures. 

In  matters  of  religion,  or  philosophy,  or  reform, 
the  Walloon  inclines  toward  Socialism,  but  is  more 
abstract  in  his  ideas  than  the  Fleming.  Probably  a 
majority  of  the  Walloons  are  out-and-out  Socialists 
—  whether  it  pays  to  be  such  or  not.  The  Flemings 
are,  in  the  main,  strict  Churchmen  and  their  Social¬ 
ism  is  wholly  practical,  hardly  rising  higher  than 
successful  economics.  The  Walloon  starts  things. 
He  begins  heresy,  reform,  revolution,  progress  — 
whatever  may  mean  new  ideas,  requiring  active 
cerebration;  but  the  Fleming,  slower  in  beginning, 

270 


NAMES  IN  TRANSFORMATION 


has  more  tenacity  and  is  more  likely  to  bring  to 
completion  whatever  he  takes  hold  of. 

The  Protestants  of  Belgium,  numbering  several 
tens  of  thousands,  are  active  and  increasing;  but 
their  field  of  enterprise  seems  to  be  almost  wholly  in 
the  Flemish  provinces.  Roughly  speaking,  there  are 
to-day  no  Protestant  Walloons  in  southern  Belgium. 

In  all  these  narratives  of  the  Walloon  heroes  of 
faith  and  freedom,  we  should  not  forget  the  woman 
by  the  side  of  the  man,  who,  with  her  finer  strength, 
suffered  also  for  conscience’  sake. 

Neither  the  Belgians  nor  the  French  take  kindly 
to  emigration.  Perhaps  above  all  others  they  are 
tenacious  of  life  on  the  home  soil.  Yet  with  father, 
husband,  brother,  and  usually  burdened  with  the 
care  of  the  children,  the  Walloon  maiden,  wife, 
mother,  left  the  old  home  to  go  forth,  scarcely  know¬ 
ing  whither.  Not  a  few  instances  in  the  annals  of 
flight  and  exile  are  known,  where  widows  or  single 
women,  even  with  little  ones,  by  wit  or  address  or 
pure  valor  passed  the  guards  and  boundaries  on  the 
way  to  freedom.  Nor  did  they  fail,  in  the  new  and 
often  forbidding  environment,  as  true  helpmates,  to 
adapt  themselves  to  the  strange  conditions  of  life  in 
foreign  lands. 

Even  as  the  fossils  found  in  the  rocks  and  strata  of 
an  older  world  show  marvelous  modifications,  which 
enabled  the  once  existent  organisms  to  live  in  har¬ 
mony  with  their  surroundings,  awakening  in  the 
scientific  mind  wonder  and  admiration,,  so  with  the 

271 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


silent  records  of  births,  marriages,  deaths,  and  en¬ 
tombment.  As  we  scan  the  lists  on  the  original 
parchments,  or  on  the  page  of  reprints,  or  on  the 
stone  covers  of  the  tombs  within  churches,  or  on 
the  lichened  records  in  the  cemetery,  the  imagin¬ 
ation  kindles. 

In  our  own  land,  the  annals  of  the  American  col¬ 
onies  or  frontiers  stir  the  blood,  as  we  picture  the 
past,  or  recall  what  we  heard  directly  from  the  lips  of 
Revolutionary  ancestors,  and  we  scarce  wonder  at 
the  resurrection  of  art  in  tablet  affixed,  or  sculpture 
upreared  —  “  lest  we  forget.”  We  welcome  the  book 
written  or  picture  painted  to  save  from  oblivion  the 
heroic  past,  which  inspires  us  for  present  duty. 

Equally  worthy  of  remembrance  are  the  heroic 
Walloons.  Surely  a  virgin  field  awaits  the  pen,  chisel, 
and  brush  of  the  American  who  loves  the  ideal  side 
of  life.  It  is  for  artist  and  sculptor  to  make  known 
in  a  better  way  than  our  feeble  pen,  a  story  which, 
when  our  American  people  know  it  well,  they  will 
“not  willingly  let  die,”  but  bring  to  the  resurrection 
of  art  for  “glory  and  for  beauty.” 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

LIFE’S  JOURNEY  AMONG  THE  WALLOONS 

A  child  or  an  alien,  journeying  in  storied  lands,  may 
be  unmindful  of  the  great  events,  on  consecrated  soil, 
which  to  the  native,  or  the  mature  student  of  history 
and  the  man  or  woman  of  culture,  make  their  fitting 
appeal.  So  also,  concerning  the  Walloons  or  their 
country,  has  been  the  life  experience  of  many  Ameri¬ 
cans  who  scarcely  know  even  the  meaning  of  the 
word,  Walloon. 

The  names  herein  recorded  of  friends,  school¬ 
mates,  companions  in  play,  and  of  eminent  citizens 
may,  to  those  of  English  descent,  have  seemed  odd, 
often  interesting  in  passing  thought  or  even  worth 
inquiring  about.  Youth,  that  lives  in  the  hour, 
makes  slight  inquest,  or  none,  into  the  past. 

But  what  pretty  faces  among  the  girls,  what  jolly 
fellows  at  school,  in  sport,  under  arms,  at  athletics, 
and  in  classroom  and  picnics !  What  good  society  at 
parties!  What  level-headed  mature  men  of  judgment 
and  kindly  presence!  What  fine  old  ladies!  What 
pleasant  visitors  in  the  home,  partners  in  the  joy  and 
grief  of  common  experiences,  in  the  school,  church, 
city,  and  nation,  do  some  of  us  recall! 

Without  fully  comprehending  heredity  or  history, 
we  could  hardly  fail  to  note  the  gracious  manners 
and  the  joyous  temperaments  in  the  bearers  of  these 

273 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


names  that  sounded  so  odd.  Did  we  not  dimly  fancy 
in  these  a  finer  strain  than  the  ordinary? 

Such  were  the  Benezets,  the  Supplees,  the  Par- 
menters,  the  Morrells,  du  Bosques,  Grimms,  San- 
tees,  Boyers,  Hamlins,  Bodines,  du  Boises,  Boutons, 
Cressons,  Clements,  Bontecous,  Cessnas,  Boileaus, 
de  Lanceys,  Duryeas,  la  Grands,  Forneys,  Gar- 
rigues,  Labaws,  Herrings,  Lefevres,  Markoes, 
Martines,  Ritners,  and  scores  more  which  memory 
could  recall. 

Do  not  we,  grandchildren  of  the  men  of  1787,  love 
to  remember  the  gratitude  of  our  fathers,  who  wrote 
it  in  the  Constitution  that  any  one,  even  a  foreigner 
by  birth,  who  was  “a  citizen  of  the  United  States  at 
the  time  of  the  adoption  of  this  Constitution  ”  might 
become  President? 

Besides  the  host  of  descendants,  Germans,  Swiss, 
Danes,  Netherlanders,  Walloons,  Flemings,  Dutch 
and  French  Huguenots,  which  no  man  has  yet  pre¬ 
cisely  numbered,  did  we  not  read  and  gradually  at¬ 
tain  to  deeper  insight  into  the  older  street  names, 
which  reflect  much  of  the  history  of  our  cities  by  the 
seaboard,  from  Boston  to  Charleston,  South  Caro¬ 
lina?  In  the  Empire  State,  even  among  the  mighty 
multitudes  of  the  “vans”  and  the  “tens,”  how  nu¬ 
merous  are  those  which  are  telltale  of  their  origin, 
such  as  de  Forest,  Dellamont,  Truax,  deGraeff, 
Mabie,  Baptiste,  Trego,  la  Grand,  Remy  and  many 
another,  with  the  prefix  “de”  or  “la”  —  on  or  off! 
Yet  all  of  these  named  in  this  book  are  only  a  few  of 

274 


LIFE  AMONG  THE  WALLOONS 


the  historical  prefixes  that  have  survived  in  the 
American  social  climate  and  usage,  for  most  of  our 
fellow  citizens  descended  from  French-speaking  for¬ 
bears  have  dropped  these. 

Even  in  the  city  dubbed  “  the  Hub  ”  by  a  Walloon 
descendant  —  the  great-great-great-grandson  of  the 
Schenectady  church  deacon  Wendell  —  what  a  reve¬ 
lation!  Here  were  Walloon  and  Huguenot  names 
galore!  The  first  schoolmaster  was  Purmort.  The 
chief  historic  edifice  was  Faneuil  Hall.  The  rider  be¬ 
tween  the  lantern  in  the  church  steeple  and  Lexing¬ 
ton  Common  was  Paul  Revere !  Here  dwelt  the  fam¬ 
ilies,  Brimmer,  Cabot,  Beard,  Durant,  Dolbear,  Le- 
land,  Perry,  and  scores  of  others  more  or  less  famous. 
Many  families  of  Huguenot  blood  and  faith  have  be¬ 
come  extinct,  but  their  names  live.  “The  cry  of  the 
eagle  is  heard  long  after  his  form  has  disappeared  be¬ 
hind  the  mountain,”  says  the  Chinese  proverb. 

In  church,  club,  market,  shop,  and  store,  and  in 
the  seats  of  culture,  were  numerous  descendants  of 
French-speaking  ancestors  in  early  New  England; 
while  at  Plymouth,  near  by,  were  fragrant  memories 
of  Priscilla  Mullens,  the  typical  “Puritan”  maiden, 
who  was  born  in  France! 

The  balance  of  probabilities  visible  in  1922  is  that 
John  Alden,  lover  and  husband,  was  also  of  the  same 
stock  and  probably  by  way  of  North  Ireland,  or  pos¬ 
sibly  eastern  England,  to  which  so  many  Walloons 
and  French  fled  in  very  early  days.  It  is  delight¬ 
ful  recreation  to  hunt  up  in  Boston  the  names  and 

275 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


places  associated  with  the  Huguenots,  and  to  learn 
that  in  the  veins  of  those  sweet  singers,  Longfellow 
and  Whittier,  in  Thoreau  also,  and  in  thousands  of 
“  typical’  ’  New  Englanders,  flowed  blood  of  the 
same  strain. 

In  the  archipelago  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson 
River,  in  the  various  cities  on  Long,  Staten,  Man¬ 
hattan,  and  smaller  islands,  behold  the  host  in  the 
sixth  and  later  generations!  All  around  us  are  the 
Disosways,  Lispenards,  Jays,  Motts,  Jaudons,  Ju¬ 
lians,  Duvals,  and  scores,  yes,  hundreds  of  names 
that  shed  luster  on  the  metropolis  of  America.  In  its 
social  penetralia ,  New  York  is  a  Walloon-Dutch- 
Huguenot  town. 

But  why  make  a  prolongation  —  as  of  mighty  Al¬ 
pine  echoes  and  resonances  from  the  same  little  horn 
of  utterance?  The  identical  social  phenomena  are 
both  audible  and  visible  in  the  cities,  towns,  and  vil¬ 
lages  of  our  forty-eight  States.  On  the  shop  signs, 
doorplates,  and  the  “mossy  marbles,”  one  reads  the 
names,  “carved  for  many  a  year”  of  the  Belgic  Wal¬ 
loons  of  Hainault,  Namur,  Liege,  Mons,  the  Ar¬ 
dennes  and  of  the  French  cities  that  were  once  in 
Walloon  Land,  such  as  Valenciennes,  Lille,  Bethune, 
Arras,  and  Douay. 

In  the  old  home  lands  beyond  sea  some  of  us  have 
greeted  or  shaken  hands  with  Walloon  folk,  or  even 
been  hospitably  entertained  in  homes  of  culture  and 
refinement,  in  which  dwelt  a  people  bearing  the  same 
patronymics  as  those  which,  however  pronounced 

276 


LIFE  AMONG  THE  WALLOONS 


differently  or  expressed  in  print  or  writing,  or  cari¬ 
catured  by  transforming  phonetics,  were  really  the 
same  as  those  borne  by  thousands  in  America.  On 
club  and  church  lists,  in  directories  and  on  the  rolls 
of  fame,  we  find  them. 

In  addition,  there  are  all  around  us  places  known 
by  record  or  memorial,  the  sites  of  extinct  settle¬ 
ments  of  French  people,  such,  for  example,  as  Ox¬ 
ford  (Worcester),  Massachusetts;  Azilum  (Rum- 
mersfield),  Pennsylvania,  and  on  the  map  scores  of 
“French”  towns,  “French”  creeks,  “French”  hills, 
or  “French”  this  or  that,  and  yet  many  more  to  be 
read  about  in  gazetteers  and  in  forgotten  documents. 
The  “French  Blood  in  the  United  States”  —  to 
quote  the  title  of  Fosdick’s  fascinating  volume,  or  to 
note  Finley’s  “The  French  in  the  Heart  of  America,” 
or  the  books  of  the  Baird  brothers  —  is  very  far 
from  being  the  least  element  in  the  American  com¬ 
posite.  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  finds  that  no 
strain  in  the  American  composite  has  produced 
more  men  and  women  of  note  in  our  country’s  his¬ 
tory. 

For  one  to  travel  leisurely  in  the  South  is  simply 
to  repeat  the  story  of  “old  experience,”  and,  in  this 
case  also,  with  great  Milton,  to  “attain  to  some¬ 
thing  of  prophetic  strain.”  In  Virginia  and  the  Car- 
olinas,  besides  noting  the  abundance  of  Ravenels, 
Colignys,  Gaillards,  Gregories,  de  Veaux,  and  hear¬ 
ing  hundreds  more  of  like  formation  and  lineage, 
there  may  be  seen,  sprinkled  on  the  pages  of  city 

277 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


directories,  Huguenot  names  as  plentiful  as  violets 
on  the  perfume  farms  of  sunny  France. 

Not  that  a  name,  or  any  form  of  it,  can  always  in 
itself  tell  * —  even  if  met  with  in  American  history  be¬ 
fore  1800,  as  truly  as  a  finger  print  is  a  sign  of  indi¬ 
viduality  —  the  story  of  origin,  ancestry,  language, 
or  country.  Nevertheless,  the  primitive  old  spelling 
often  affords  a  helpful  and  an  enlightening  clue.  To 
make  one  wary  of  pitfalls,  one  need  but  think  of  the 
avalanche  of  immigrations  from  Canada  and  Eu¬ 
rope,  the  floods  from  the  bayous  of  Louisiana  and  the 
deposits  in  the  northwest  from  the  old  French  occu¬ 
pation.  To  the  un forewarned  researcher,  a  patro¬ 
nymic  with  deceitful  resemblance,  especially  in  its 
modern  spelling,  is  much  like  the  pits  made  by  the 
Walloons  on  Staten  Island.  They  were  covered  over 
with  sticks,  earth,  leaves,  or  flowers,  for  wolves  to 
fall  in  and  be  trapped. 

Set  opposite  to  our  immeasurable  debt,  created  by 
inheritances  of  language  and  law  and  by  what  Eu¬ 
rope  brought  to  us  in  blood  and  ideas,  is  the  column 
of  continuous,  beneficent  American  reaction  on  the 
old  home  lands.  Great  Britain  learned  from  her 
American  experience  a  noble  colonial  policy  and 
treatment  of  races.  Franklin  taught  an  over-luxu¬ 
rious  court  the  beauties  of  the  simple  life  and  hinted 
that  ordered  liberty  was  a  nation’s  best  strength. 
Lafayette  and  the  cohorts  of  French  soldiers  went 
back  to  create  a  new  France,  by  breaking  the  yoke 
of  ecclesiastical  despotism.  Besides  striving  to  miti- 

^278 


LIFE  AMONG  THE  WALLOONS 


gate  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution  —  the 
reaction  against  the  dual  despotism  of  Church  and 
State  united  —  Lafayette  strove  to  gain  for  his 
countrymen  what  he  had  seen  in  America,  free 
churchmanship.  He  did  not  agitate  or  labor  for 
mere  tolerance,  that  is,  the  right  to  live,  but  for  free¬ 
dom  of  conscience  for  all.  By  degrees,  France  won 
soul  liberty  by  breaking  the  shackles  of  the  Latin  po¬ 
tentate  and  corporation,  even  to  withdrawing  her  le¬ 
gation  from  Rome  and  severing  diplomatic  relations 
with  the  papal  dynasty,  and  finally,  in  1905,  ceasing 
to  subsidize  any  cult.  Nothing  else  so  assisted  to 
make  of  the  hero  nation  the  “Eternal  France”  of 
1914  as  this  action.  Later  relations  with  the  Vatican 
were  resumed  on  a  new  basis.  In  resisting  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  onslaught  of  1914,  Jew  and  Gentile,  Catholic 
and  Socialist,  Reformed  and  Unreformed,  marched 
as  one  man.  In  a  word,  France  reached  and  ac¬ 
cepted  the  Huguenot  position  of  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury. 

Others  have  told  the  story  of  eminent  men  and 
women  of  Walloon  stock  from  the  old  Belgic  Land 
who  won  fame  in  America  —  though  their  merit  is 
usually  ascribed  to  inheritances  from  France.  It  is 
not  for  us,  in  this  volume,  to  expatiate  on  what  our 
nation  owes  to  those  who  bear  the  names  of  de  For¬ 
est,  Minuit,  Montaine,  du  Bois,  Hillegas,  Laurence, 
Boudinot,  Marion,  Hamilton,  Reynolds,  Howe,  Be- 
thune,  Vassar,  Dana,  etc.,  etc.,  or  to  enter  into  the 
flowery  fields  of  literature,  art,  eloquence,  inven- 

279  ' 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  WALLOONS 


tion,  enterprise,  and  exploration,  in  order  to  discover 
our  debt  to  the  Walloon,  or  to  do  what  Schiller  has 
told  us,  or  to  sound  again  the  plaudits  so  deserved. 
He  may  rather  draw  a  parable  from  Bedloe’s  Island 
in  New  York  Harbor,  whereon  stands  the  colossal 
statue  of  “  Liberty  Enlightening  the  World.”  The 
initial  property  of  a  Walloon,  the  history  of  the  is¬ 
land  was  for  two  centuries  or  more  that  of  modest 
usefulness  only.  It  seemed  set  in  the  water  for 
naught  but  “ homely  joys  and  destiny  obscure,” 
until  grateful  France  made  ready  her  gift  of  Bar¬ 
tholdi’s  artistic  triumph. 

Nevertheless,  Americans  tarried  in  their  response 
and  the  fitting  pedestal  awaited  its  uprearing  until 
James  W.  Pinchot,  of  Walloon  descent,  summoned 
his  fellow  citizens  to  their  duty  and  privilege.  Now, 
set  on  high,  besides  being  “a  thing  of  beauty”  and 
‘‘a  joy  forever,”  the  electric  current,  generated  from 
the  long-hidden  treasures  within  the  earth,  makes 
this  statue  at  night  a  beacon  for  ships  “to  give  light 
and  to  save  life.” 

“History  is  a  resurrection.” 


THE  END 


THE  FRAMEWORK  OF  TIME 


THE  FRAMEWORK  OF  TIME 


From  primeval  ages,  the  root  form  gal,  or  wal  —  as  in  Gallic 
Gaul,  Galatians,  there  being  no  w  in  Latin,  and  the  letters  g  and 
w  being  interchangeable  in  the  North  —  existed  in  the  Indo- 
Germanic  tongues.  With  the  root  oon,  or  one,  the  word  “Wal¬ 
loon”  was  formed  and  first  used  in  the  English  language  during 
the  sixteenth  century;  the  literal  idea  of  what  was  stranger, 
pilgrim,  foreign  being  the  same  as  in  “Wales,”  “walnut,”  “  Wal- 
lachia,”  and  in  many  place-names.  Hence  wal,  foreign,  oon, 
one  =  Walloon. 

The  Coal  Forest,  once  covering  a  large  area  in  Belgica,  over 
what  is  now  the  coal-mining  region,  was  not  penetrated  by  the 
Romans  or  Franks,  and  served  as  a  barrier  separating  the  Belgse 
in  the  south,  of  Celtic  stock,  from  the  Flemings  of  the  north,  of 
Teutonic  origin.  Hence  two  races  and  two  languages  in  Belgium. 

In  Caesar’s  Commentaries  on  the  Gallic  War,  the  Belgae  are  men¬ 
tioned  as  being  “the  bravest  of  all  these”  in  Belgica,  or  “Bel¬ 
gium”  —  then  a  geographical  term  including  a  great  area. 


The  Roman  Occupation.  B.c. 

The  invasion  and  empire  of  the  Franks. 

Belgium  made  part  of  Austrasia. 

“The  Century  of  the  Saints”  —  Christian  Mission¬ 
aries. 

The  Carlovingian  Empire. 

Foundation  and  development  of  the  provinces,  of 
Belgic  Land,  until  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
Charcoal  Forest. 

Church  and  State  united  —  Charlemagne. 

The  Verdun  Compact.  Three  Realms. 

Duchy  of  Lothair  and  Principality  of  Li&ge. 

The  Belgian  Crusades. 

The  Communes. 

The  Belgian  Countships. 

Flourishing  of  the  Cities. 

The  Burgundian  Era  (Unification). 

283 


53-A.D.  406 , 
A.D.  300 

511 

600-700 

614-618 


800 

843 

956-IO96 

IO96-I270 

900-1500 

9OO-I279 

1200-1500 

1384-1476 


THE  FRAMEWORK  OF  TIME 


The  Renaissance. 

The  Turks  capture  Constantinople.  Dispersion  of 
the  Greek  scholars  in  Western  Europe. 

Margaret  of  Austria,  Regent  of  the  Netherlands. 

Charles  V. 

The  Reformation  Era. 

Beginnings  of  the  French  Reformation. 

Revolt  against  Spanish  Rule. 

The  “Huguenots.” 

Translation  and  singing  of  the  Psalms  by  the  French 
and  Walloon  Huguenots. 

Translation  of  the  Bible  into  French. 

John  Calvin,  father  of  public  schools  and  promoter 
of  the  first  French  Protestant  colony  in  America, 
Brazil. 

Huguenot  French  attempts  at  Colonization  in 
Florida. 

Walloon  refugees  in  England  and  the  Palatinate. 

Hedge  preaching.  Peregrine  La  Grand. 

Guido  de  Bray. 

The  Belgic  Confession  of  Faith. 

The  Edict  of  Nantes. 

Philip  II  of  Spain. 

Spanish  Invasion,  led  by  the  Duke  of  Alva. 

Flight  and  Dispersion  of  the  Walloons. 

Birth  of  Usselinx,  father  of  the  West  India  Com¬ 
pany  and  of  Walloon  Colonization  in  America. 

Beginning  of  the  Great  Dispersion. 

Union  of  Arras  —  the  Walloon  Provinces  return  to 
Spanish  allegiance. 

Principal  migrations  of  the  Walloons  into  the  Ger¬ 
man  Palatinate  and  other  Lands  o  Exile. 

Declaration  of  freedom  of  conscience,  by  William 
of  Orange. 

Jesse  de  Forest  in  Belgic  Land. 

Jesse  de  Forest  in  Leyden. 

He  enrolls  colonists  for  Virginia. 

The  Walloon  Provinces  react  toward  Spain.  “The 
Spanish  Netherlands.” 


1300-1560 

1453 

1506-1530 

I5I5-I555 

1517-1648 

1523-1530 

1555-1598 

1550 

1545 

1523-1530 


1536 

1562-1564 

1544-1700 

1560 
1540-1567 

1561 
1598 

1527-1598 

1567 

1567-1580 

1567 

1567 

1578 

1567-1688 

1577 

1576-1615 

1615-1623 

1621 


I579-I7I3 


284 


THE  FRAMEWORK  OF  TIME 


The  English  Separatists  arrive  in  Amsterdam.  1593 

The  Dutch  East  India  Company  formed.  1602 

Struggle  between  the  Secession  (State  Right)  and 

Union  parties  in  the  Dutch  Republic.  1609-1619 

Sailing  of  the  Half  Moon.  Discovery  of  New  Nether- 

land.  1609 

The  “Pilgrim  Fathers”  in  Leyden  (8  nationalities).  1610-1655 
Triumph  of  the  Union  Cause  and  National  Synod 

of  Dordrecht.  1619 

Formation  of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company.  1621 

Dutch  fur-traders,  fishermen,  and  explorers  in  New 
Netherland.  1610-1624 


Arrival  of  the  ship  New  Netherland,  with  thirty 
families,  mostly  Walloons.  Founding  of  New 
York  and  the  Middle  States.  The  first  home¬ 
makers  and  tillers  of  the  soil.  Four  Walloon  mar¬ 


ried  couples  settle  in  the  Delaware  Valley.  1624 

William  Verhulst,  Director.  New  settlers  arrive, 

with  live-stock,  tools,  mechanics,  etc.  1625 

New  Netherland,  a  province  of  the  Dutch  Republic, 
organized  with  a  civil  government  and  seal  and 
named  [Terra]  Nova  Belgica.  1626 

First  public  worship  in  organized  church  and  preach¬ 
ing  to  the  Walloons  in  America.  1628 

The  Austrian  Netherlands  (Absolutism).  1714-1794 

Belgian  territory  ceded  to  France  and  becomes 
Artois  and  later  Departement  du  Nord.  1668 

“A  Century  of  Misery.”  Belgium  “the  Cockpit  of 
Europe.”  1600-1700 

Belgium  united  to  Holland.  1814-1830 

Independence  of  Belgium,  the  Modern  Kingdom, 
with  freedom  of  conscience.  1830 

Formation  of  Huguenot  Societies  in  U.S.A.  1883 

Publication  of  The  de  Forests  of  Avesnes.  1900 

Publication  of  the  Poujol’s  History  and  Influence  of 
the  Walloon  Churches  in  the  Netherlands.  1902 

The  Great  World  War.  1914-1918 

“Return  of  the  New  Netherland.”  American  help  to 

Belgium  and  France.  1916-1918 

285 


THE  FRAMEWORK  OF  TIME 


Issues  of  five  editions  of  Corwin’s  Manual ,  showing 
Walloon  and  Dutch  pastors. 

Publication  of  A  Walloon  Family  in  America. 

Federal  Council  of  Churches  propose  a  national 
Tercentenary  celebration,  in  1924,  of  the  founding 
in  1624,  of  New  York,  by  the  Huguenot  Wal¬ 
loons. 


1859-1922 

1914 


1922 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aborigines,  142.  See  Indians. 
Adolphus.  See  Gustavus  Adol¬ 
phus. 

Agnew,  268. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  253. 

Albany,  147,  151,  152,  193,  258. 

See  Beverwyck.  , 

Alden,  John,  275. 

Algonquins,  157. 

Alva,  Duke  of,  42,  101. 

America,  31,  44,  46,  47,  233,  260. 
American  Expeditionary  Force, 
264. 

American  freedom,  53,  104,  260. 
Americans,  224,  226,  248. 

Amida,  92. 

Amsterdam,  112,  166. 
Anabaptists,  51-56,  80,  81/ 
Ancestors,  159,  248,  253,  265,  270. 
Anglo-Saxons,  65,  114,  153. 

Anne,  Queen,  109,  122. 

Antwerp,  33,  153,  179. 
Architecture,  40,  87,  147,  192, 
197,  202,  209,  213. 

Armada,  70. 

Arminians,  100. 

Arras,  248,  276.  See  Union  of  Ar¬ 
ras. 

Art,  25,  30,  75,  87,  88,  209,  270. 
Asia,  28-34,  I54»  264. 

Astor,  268. 

Avery,  268. 

Avesnes,  248. 

Babies,  157,  158,  168,  195. 

Bailey,  268. 


Balance  of  Power,  4. 

Balch,  T.  W.,  15. 

Baptism,  52. 

Baptiste,  274. 

Barneveldt,  100,  135,  187. 

Barr,  268. 

Barry,  267. 

Batchelder,  268. 

Bayonne,  196. 

Bean,  268. 

Beard,  275.  ‘ 

Beaver,  169. 

Bedloe’s  Island,  280. 

Beggars  of  the  Sea,  3,  103,  134. 
Belgians  and  Frenchmen,  248. 
Belgic  Confession,  79,  80,  93. 
Belgium,  161. 

Bells,  164. 

Benezets,  274. 

Benn,  268. 

Berlin,  127,  211,  251. 

Bethune,  276,  279. 

Beverwyck,  154-56,  157,  169. 
Beza,  68. 

Bible,  47,  48,  51,  59,  69,  72,  99, 
103,  107,  176. 

Bion,  Jean,  122. 

Blum,  Domine,  219. 

Bodine,  201,  274.  , 

Bogart,  267. 

Bogerman,  100. 

Boileau,  279. 

Boisot,  103,  105. 

Bonheur,  267.  ' 

Bonny,  267. 

Bon  Repos,  20„ 


INDEX 


Bontecou,  274. 

Boston,  254,  275. 

Boudin,  201. 

Boudinot,  279. 

Boughton,  George  H.t  177* 
Bouton,  274. 

Boyer,  274. 

Bradford,  108,  139,  143,  170,  177, 
181,  207. 

Branding,  121. 

Brazil,  18 1,  188,  203. 

Brethren,  The,  56-58.  See  Ana¬ 
baptists. 

Brewer,  W.,  195. 

Brides,  148,  248. 

Briggs,  268. 

Brill,  103,  267. 

Brimmer,  275. 

British  elements,  245. 

Brooklyn,  195. 

Brussels,  11,  12,  46. 

Bryce,  James,  226. 

Buddhism,  29,  92. 

Bumpus,  268. 

Burgundian  era,  35-41. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  222. 

Cabot,  275. 

Calvin,  62,  69,  72,  118,  132,  187. 
Calvinism,  117,  180. 

Calvinists,  5,  78,  149. 
Cammaerts,  25. 

Canada,  5,  152,  153,  186,  242, 
248,  253. 

Cannibals,  154. 

Canterbury,  182. 

Carillons,  69,  83. 

Carleton,  Sir  D.,  140. 

Carolinas,  256,  257,  277. 

Carpets,  160. 

Catechising,  98,  168,  183,  186. 
Cathedrals,  31,  88,  89. 

Catholic.  61. 


Catskill  Mountains,  214,  261. 
Cattle,  197. 

Cessna,  274. 

Chadaine,  201. 

Chaille,  201. 

Chambers,  268.  • 

Champlain,  153. 

Changes  in  names,  266-72. 
Charlemagne,  19,  20,  164. 

Charles  II,  42-50. 

Charles  V,  42-50. 

Charles  the  Bold,  38,  39,  271. 
Charleston,  254. 

Charters,  46. 

Chevalier,  267. 

China,  135. 

Chinese,  21,  22,  31,  32,  275. 
Christianity,  74. 

Christine,  116. 

Christmas,  205,  206. 

Church  and  State,  19,  20,  40,  94, 
99,  146,  207,  220,  223,  227,  229, 
230,  260,  279. 

Church  charters,  229. 

Church  edifices,  164,  174,  205. 
Churches,  89-100. 

Church  government,  89-100. 
Church  in  the  Desert,  256. 
Church  in  the  Fort,  163,  189. 
Church  records,  204. 

Church  under  the  Cross,  92,  94, 

.A05*. 

Cities  in  U.S.A.,  274. 

City  republics,  36. 

Civilizations,  137,  138,  160,  164. 
Clarks,  268. 

Cleanliness,  197. 

Coal  forest,  23,  26,  27,  196. 
Cocceius,  238,  239. 

Cockeran,  238,  240. 

Cockpit  of  Europe,  37,  89. 
Coetus  and  Conferentia,  259. 
Coins,  132,  17 1. 


290 


INDEX 


Coleman,  C.  A.,  240. 

Coligny,  131,  132,  277. 
Colonization,  99,  138. 
Colonization  of  America,  5,  13 1, 
132,  134,  148,  159-61. 
Colonizers  of  America,  64,  66, 
^  1 16,  130,  159-61. 

Consistory,  77,  78. 

Constitution,  274. 

Coppinger,  268. 

Courtrai,  36. 

Cradles,  157,  158,  168. 

Crefeld,  210. 

Cremation,  154. 

Crescent.  See  Half  Moon. 
Crockerton,  203. 

Crowley,  268. 

Cruller,  171. 

Cubberlys,  203.  •' 

Daggott,  268. 

Daille,  P.,  204,  205. 

Daisy.  See  Marguerite. 

Dana,  279. 

Danes,  75,  196. 
d’Athenus,  79. 

Dathenus,  P.,  79,  96-98. 
de  Besche,  112,  113. 
de  Bres,  G.  See  Guido  de  Bray. 
Decoration,  interior,  159,  161. 
Defoe,  269. 

de  Forest,  David,  265. 
de  Forest,  Jesse,  134-40,  144, 
165,  194. 

de  Forest,  Rachel,  194. 
de  Forest,  Mrs.  R.  W.,  134,  265. 
de  Forests,  75,  76,  274. 
de  Geer,  m-14. 
de  GraefT,  274. 
de  Groot,  22,  267. 
d’Iberville,  254. 
de  Laet,  193. 
de  Lanceys,  274. 


Delaware,  no,  115,  116,  174. 
Delfshaven,  98,  139. 

Dellamont,  274. 

Democracy,  78,  130. 

Denmark,  118,  196. 

Dennis,  268. 

Departement  du  Nord,  9,  II,  248, 
251,  253. 

Depew,  201. 

Depres,  69. 
de  Rasieres,  166-182. 
de  Reus,  195,  197. 
de  Ronde,  Lambertus,  258. 
de  Rosen,  128. 
de  Ruyter,  267. 
de  Veaux,  277. 
de  Witt,  Simeon,  265. 

Dexter,  H.  N.,  186. 

Dey,  D.  J.,  196. 

Dikes,  106. 

Disosways,  201,  203,  276.' 
Distinctive  America,  3,  151. 
Doctrines,  56,  57. 

Documents,  117. 

Dolbear,  275. 

Domine,  158,  188,  189,  190,  239. 
Domines,  239,  258-65. 

Dordrecht,  Synod  of,  98-100, 137. 
Driver,  268. 

Dublin,  104. 

Du  Bois,  202,  212,  219,  274. 
Duche,  201. 
du  Jardin,  267. 

Duke  of  York,  221.  ' 

Dumont,  267. 

Dumoulins,  267. 

Dunkirk,  142. 

Durant,  275. 

Duryea,  274. 

Dutch  and  English  languages, 
259,  261. 

Dutch  and  French  speech,  261. 
Dutch  in  America,  114,  115,  116. 


291 


INDEX 


Dutch  Republic,  61,  85,  104,  108, 
129,  135,  138,  166,  169,  199, 
206,  229,  249,  263. 

Dutch  traits,  138. 

Duval,  276. 

Dwight,  268. 

East  India  Company,  134. 
Eckhof,  Dr.,  128,  180,  190. 
Economics,  103,  117,  124-29,  233, 
^  251,  252. 

Education,  189,  259,  260,  263. 
See  Catechisms. 

Elector,  Frederick  William,  94, 
95,  211,  220. 

Emblems,  87. 

Emden,  93. 

Emery,  267. 

Empire  State,  163,  170,  189,  221, 
222,  245,  257,  265,  274. 
Engages,  252. 

England,  36,  52,  159,  161,  245. 
England,  Walloons  in,  102. 
English,  200. 

English  Conquest,  222,  235. 
English  Governors,  224. 

English  speech  and  literature, 
259,  261. 

Episcopal  Churches,  104,  174, 
229,  235. 

Erasmus,  49. 

Esopus,  214. 

Europe,  260. 

European  inheritances,  161,  260. 
Evangeline,  210. 

Evolution,  157,  215. 

Explorers,  203. 

Farel,  62. 

Farms,  192,  197. 

Federalism,  104,  106,  135. 
Feudalism,  24,  35,  40,  260. 
Fillmore,  Millard,  153. 


Finances,  171. 

Firearms,  145,  153,  154,  157, 
217. 

Firewater,  216,  217. 

First  Church  in  New  York,  163. 
First  colonists,  147. 

Five  Nations.  See  Iroquois. 
Flagg,  Ernest,  209. 

Flags,  3,  4,  5,  95,  104-07,  I4D 
142,  240. 

Flanders,  74. 

Flax,  33,  169. 

Fleming  and  Walloon,  270. 
Flemings,  8,  19,  101,  197. 
Fletcher,  Governor,  230. 

Florida,  70,  83. 

Flushing,  261. 

Food,  160,  161. 

Forbes,  Jeanne  A.,  240. 

Forests,  192. 

Forney,  274. 

Fort  Amsterdam  144,  178. 

Fort  Orange,  152. 

Fosdick,  277. 

France,  9,  59,  60,  61-65,  90,  160, 
203,  205,  243,  253,  255,  279. 
Frankenthal,  212. 

Frankfort,  82,  97,  236,  237,  269. 
Franklin,  B.,  229. 

Fredericia,  118. 

Frederick  William,  Elector,  127, 
128. 

Free  Churchmen,  132,  227,  266. 
Freedom  of  religion,  245. 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  226. 

Free  Printing,  228. 

Fremont,  268. 

French,  10,  59,  159,  189,  203,  251. 
French  Revolution,  121,  122. 
Friends,  55. 

Frontier  influence,  161. 

Frontier  theory,  224. 

Frontiers,  112,  197,  242. 


292 


INDEX 


Galera,  122. 

Galerien,  121. 

Gallaird,  277. 

Galleys,  109,  119-23,  204. 
Garrigues,  274. 

Genealogy,  248. 

Geneva,  60. 

Germans,  166,  251. 

Germany,  127-29,  236,  250,  251. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  122. 

Goucher,  268. 

Government,  functions  of,  167. 
Government  of  churches,  77. 
Great  Britain,  249. 

Great  Privilege,  The,  44. 

Greater  Wallonia,  253,  257. 
Greece,  130. 

Greek,  48. 

Greenbush,  156. 

Gregories,  277. 

Gresham,  Secretary,  10. 

Grimm,  274. 

Guido  de  Bray,  51,  72-84,  93. 
Gustavus  Adolphus,  1 10-12,  116, 
196. 

Guyon,  203. 

Hainault,  67,  68,  196. 

Half  Moon,  134,  200. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  171. 
Hamilton,  Andrew,  228. 

Hamlin,  274. 

Hansen,  M.  G.,  78,  238. 

Hardy,  267. 

Harlem,  180,  194,  258. 

Haynes,  267. 

Hedge  preaching,  90,  93. 
Heidelberg  Catechism,  98. 

Henry  Hudson,  3,  135,  165,  200, 
211. 

Henry  of  Navarre,  256. 

Heresy,  16,  17,  53,  55,  66,  96, 

121. 


Herring,  274. 

Hewett,  268. 

Hiawatha,  156. 

Hillegas,  270. 

History,  English  and  American, 
225,  226,  245,  263. 

Holland,  40,  158. 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  10. 

Holy  Scriptures,  88. 

Homes,  89,  159,  162. 

Hoorn,  197. 

Horses,  197. 

Houses,  147,  159,  192,  197,  202. 
Howe,  279. 

Hudson,  H.  See  Henry  Hudson. 
Hudson  River,  146,  214. 
Huguenot  Park,  202. 

Huguenot  Refugees,  251. 
Huguenots,  65,  66,  73,  103. 
Huguenots  in  America,  70,  83, 
119-28,  200. 

Huguenots  in  England,  102. 
Huguenots  in  France,  61-70,  279. 
Huguenots  in  Germany,  166,  21 1, 
212. 

Huguenots  in  Holland,  102. 
Huguenots  in  Ireland,  104. 
Hunter,  Rev.  John,  250. 

Hurley,  215. 

Huyghens,  J.,  189. 

Hymns,  215. 

Idealism,  142. 

Index  of  Prohibited  Books,  132. 
Indians,  215. 

Indian  policy,  145,  152,  167,  170, 
186,  190. 

Indian  sociology,  154. 
Individualism,  184-96. 

Industry,  33,  151. 

Inheritances,  279,  280. 

Interiors,  160. 

Intolerance,  88. 


293 


INDEX 


Ireland,  104,  207,  228,  275. 

Irish,  227. 

Iron  industry,  1 13,  129. 

Iroquois,  152-56. 

Irving,  Washington,  158,  166, 

173- 

Italians,  208.  See  Waldenses. 

Jackman,  268. 

James  I.,  139. 

Jamestown,  254. 

Jamison,  Mary,  154. 

Jasper,  268. 

Jay,  276. 

John  Company,  17 1,  172. 
Joudans,  276. 

Joyous  Entry,  22. 

Joyousness,  117. 

Julian,  268,  276. 

Junius,  Franciscus,  79,  95. 

Kilmer,  Joyce,  264. 

Kings,  48. 

King’s  Religion,  The,  64,  119-23, 
126,  239. 

Kingston,  147. 

Knights,  37. 

Knox,  John,  243. 

Komura,  Count,  129. 

Korea,  31,  32. 

Kragier,  219. 

Krieckenbeeck,  154. 

Krol,  Sebastian,  173. 

Labaw,  249. 

Labidists,  203. 

Lace,  104. 

Laconte,  201. 

Lafebre,  or  Lafevre,  201. 

Lafevre,  27. 

La  Grande,  274. 

La  Grand,  Peregrine,  84,  93. 
Laidlie,  Archibald,  261. 


Land  Tenure,  149,  152,  166,  168, 
180-219. 

Latin  culture,  260. 

Laurence,  279. 
le  Grand,  267. 

Leisler,  Jacob,  82,  119,  175,  204, 
220,  225,  229,  234,  236-45,  254, 
257,  262,  269. 

Leland,  275. 

Leyden,  103,  105,  106,  107,  139, 
165,  239,  177,  188,  263. 

Lille,  212,  248. 

Lily  among  Thorns,  91,  92. 
Linen,  204. 

Liquor,  157. 

Lispenard,  276. 

Literature,  61. 

Livingston,  J.  H.,  263. 

Lodge,  H.  C.,  277. 

London,  82,  98. 

Longfellow,  268,  276. 

Long  House,  152,  153. 

Long  Island,  208. 

Lothair,  23,  38. 

Louis,  Count,  105. 

Louisiana,  254,  278. 

Louis  XIV,  108,  119-23,  166,  203, 
21 1,  243,  247,  248,  253. 

Lovell,  268. 

Loyalties,  103,  260. 

Loyola,  62. 

Luther,  94. 

Lutherans,  174. 

Maas  River,  147. 

Maastricht,  112. 

Mabie,  274. 

Magdeburg,  86. 

Magna  Charta,  230. 

Maintenon,  Madame  de,  202, 
253. 

Makers  of  America,  146. 
Manhattan,  119,  144,  147,  155, 


INDEX 


I67,  170,  l80,  188,  192,  198, 
200,  205,  208,  214,  224,  254. 
Manhattan  archipelago,  8,  146, 
148. 

Mannheim,  210-13. 

Marguerite  daisy,  40,  41. 

Marion,  279. 

Markoe,  274. 

Marot,  67. 

Marot’s  Psalms,  67,  83,  98,  219. 
Marriage,  148,  180,  206. 
Marriage  by  proxy,  42. 
Martielles,  Jean,  122. 

Martine,  274. 

Martyrs,  14. 

Mary  of  Burgundy,  39. 
Maximilian  I,  42-44. 

Mayflower,  1,  137,  165,  166. 
McKinley,  President,  136. 
Melting  pot,  114. 

Memorials,  257,  266. 

Menno  Simons,  52. 

Mennonites,  52. 

Mersereau,  201. 

Methodists,  55,  188. 

Michaelius,  Domine,  188. 
Middelburg,  179. 

Middle  Ages,  28,  34,  87. 

Middle  States,  3,  108,  135,  202, 
233,  237,  245,  263. 

Miles,  268. 

Milton,  206,  228,  277. 
Ministeriality,  187. 

Ministers,  143,  262,  263. 

Minuit,  Pierre,  or  Peter,  94,  145, 
150,  159,  163-65,  180,  189. 
Mixture  of  races,  269. 

Modet,  Henry,  79,  87. 

Mohawks,  154,  155,  239. 
Mohawk  Valley,  171,  197. 
Mohicans,  154,  156. 

Monopolies,  214. 

Morrell,  274. 


Mother  land,  245,  260. 

Mott,  268. 

Mullins,  Priscilla,  275. 

Names,  no,  127,  201,  216,  262, 
266,  269. 

Names  in  transformation,  266, 
272. 

Names  of  churches,  79. 

Nantes,  211,  213,  256. 
Nationalities,  17,  23,  263. 

Neale,  268. 

Negroes,  218,  258. 

Nellius,  Carolus,  99. 

New  Amsterdam,  144. 

New  Avesnes,  144,  178. 

New  Brunswick,  229,  263. 

New  England,  114,  115,  144,  256, 
276. 

New  Jersey,  233. 

New  Netherland,  4,  65,  129,  148, 
149,  158,  165,  175,  190,  222, 
258. 

New  Netherland  (ship),  115,  141, 
146,  149,  152,  161,  200. 

New  Netherlands  (non-existent), 

158- 

New  Paltz,  119,  147,  212-21,  254, 
255,  261. 

New  Rochelle,  69,  119,  240,  245, 
255- 

New  Rupella,  255. 

New  York  City,  152,  168,  276. 

See  Manhattan. 

New  York  Harbor,  280. 

New  York  State.  See  Empire 
State. 

Norman,  C.  C.,  196. 

Normandy,  251. 

Normans,  172,  196. 

Norman’s  Kill,  156. 

Norseman,  95,  119. 

Norwich,  102. 


295 


INDEX 


Nova  Belgica  (Terra),  3,  10,  134, 
149,  158,  165,  188,  211,  245. 

Oars,  120,  122,  248. 

Old  Testament,  65. 

Orthodoxy,  16. 

Osier,  268. 

Ostrander,  Henry,  261. 
Ostrander,  Stephen,  261. 
Oxenstierna,  116,  174. 

Oxford,  Mass,  257,  277. 

Palatinate,  166,  2 10-221. 
Parliament,  223,  225,  227,  244. 
Patriotism,  264. 

Patroons,  172. 

Patton,  268. 

Payne,  267. 

Peace  Covenant,  152,  153,  167. 
Pearse,  268. 

Peiret,  205. 

Pelletier,  267. 

Penn,  William,  145, 153, 159, 167, 
174,  210,  218. 

Pennies,  103,  257. 

People,  The,  222,  234. 

Perkins,  268. 

Perrine,  13,  203. 

Petrograd,  128. 

Pettee,  268. 

Pews,  177. 

Philadelphia,  115,  116,  132,  210, 
254* 

Philip  II,  15,  50,  59,  70. 
Phonetics,  127,  163,  277. 

Pickens,  268. 

Pilgrim  and  Puritan,  247,  250. 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  10,  11,  98,  106, 
108,  143, 163,  176,  177,201,250. 
Pilgrims,  6,  139,  164,  175,  237, 
266. 

Pillow,  268. 

Pinchot,  James  W.,  280. 


Pintards,  201. 

Pippins,  161. 

Pirates,  126,  142. 

Plancius,  P.,  134. 

Plantation,  192,  195. 

Plattekil,  261. 

Plummer,  268. 

Plymouth,  114,  147,  169,  177, 
192,  275. 

Poole,  Reginald,  128. 

Portsmouth  treaty,  128. 
Portuguese,  154,  155. 

Powell,  268. 

Precentor,  187. 

Presbyterians,  206. 

Printing,  49,  50,  69,  228. 
Privates,  231. 

Progress,  53,  54,  259. 

Protestant,  59,  126,  271. 
Provinces  of  Belgium,  11. 
Prussia,  126,  251. 

Psalms,  67,  69,  219. 

Psychology,  218,  220. 

Puritans,  73,  92,  131,  205. 

Quakers,  188.  See  Friends. 

Queen  Wilhelmina,  100. 

Quentin  Durward,  39. 

Quincy,  268. 

Raad  van  Stat6,  45. 

Rabelais,  62. 

Races  in  contact,  28,  261. 

Ramey,  268. 

Ransom,  219. 

Rapalje,  J.  J.,  195. 

Rapalje,  Sara,  195. 

Raritan  River,  265. 

Rasieres,  J.  de.  See  de  Raster es. 
Redemptioners,  251,  252. 

Red  Hook,  258. 

Reformation,  48-50,  53,  59-71, 
146,  260. 


296 


INDEX 


Reformed  Church  in  America,  78, 
90-100,  258-65. 

Reformed  faith,  8. 

Reformers,  77,  81. 

Refugees,  164,  248,  254,  256. 
Religion,  245,  247,  248. 

Religion  in  the  home,  183-86. 
Remonstrants,  99. 

Remy,  274. 

Renaissance,  246. 

Republic,  Dutch,  6,  102,  150. 
Revell,  268. 

Revere,  Paul,  275. 

Revocation  of  Edict  of  Nantes, 
108,  213,  256. 

Revolution,  American,  144,  233, 
235,  258. 

Reynolds,  279. 

Rhine,  164,  210,  213,  249. 

Ritner,  274. 

Ritual,  180,  187. 

Robinson,  141,  173,  257. 
Rochelle,  La,  255. 

Roman  Empire,  18. 

Romans,  26,  74. 

Rome,  21. 

Rondout,  214. 

Rose,  268. 

Rowland,  268. 

Russia,  101,  128. 

Rutgers  College,  229,  259,  263, 
265. 

Ryswyck,  108,  109. 

Sacraments,  187. 

Santa  Claas,  158. 

Saugerties,  258. 

Scandinavians,  174,  196. 
Schaeffer,  J.  G.  de  Hoop,  52,  53, 
139. 

Schaghticoke,  258. 

Schenectady,  119,  155,  169,  191, 
201,202,220,229,  242,  253,  275. 


Schiller,  280. 

Schools,  143,  166,  190-203. 

Scott,  Walter,  39,  158. 

Scrooby,  143. 

Seals,  10,  149,  166,  169,  170. 
Sectionalism,  253. 

Sects,  61. 

Self-government,  89. 

Selyns,  Domine,  204. 

Seneca  Indians,  261. 

Sequines,  203. 

Settlements,  119. 

Seventeen  provinces,  4,  8,  37. 
Seymour,  268. 

Shinnecocks,  208. 

Shipbuilding,  172. 

Ships  (Dutch),  199,  203, 206,  207, 

213. 

Ships’  names,  179. 

Slavery,  119-23,  218,  219. 

Slave  trade,  109,  12 1. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  226. 

Socialism,  270. 

Social  Life,  235. 

Society  of  Colonial  Wars,  116. 
Song,  143.. 

South  Africa,  126,  257. 

South  America,  2,  126. 

Spain,  and  Spaniards,  134-38, 
148,  166,  171. 

Speedwell,  1. 

Spelling,  267,  268. 

Spicer,  268. 

Sports,  167. 

St.  Christopher  (Island),  203, 
252,  257. 

St.  Goliard,  73. 

St.  Kitts.  See  St.  Christopher. 
Statecraft,  109. 

Staten  Island,  119,  199,  209, 
278. 

States-General,  84,  95. 

Stone  Age,  153,  156. 


297 


INDEX 


Stratford-on-Avon,  5. 

Street  names,  274. 

Stripes,  106,  107,  120. 

Stuart  Kings,  222,  234. 
Stuyvesant,  4,  208,  218. 

Sugar,  181. 

Symonds,  267. 

Sweden,  1 10-18,  172,  196. 

Swedes  in  Delaware,  1 10, 1 15, 1 16. 
Swedish  genius,  no. 

Swiss  Republic,  68. 

Switzerland,  38,  68,  118. 
Symbols,  87,  92,  183,  186. 

Synod  of  Dort  (Dordrecht),  148, 
185,  189. 

Synods,  93*95,  98-100,  148,  239. 

Tablets,  116,  163. 

Tarry  town,  166. 

Tassemacher,  P.,  239. 
Tawasentha,  156. 

Taxation,  43,  225. 

Tercentenary  of  New  York,  132. 
Terry,  268. 

Theology,  56,  57,  60,  61,  132,  135, 
205,  260,  263. 

Thirty  Years  War,  86,  166,  174. 
Thoreau,  203,  276. 

Tilly,  77,  86. 

Torrey,  268. 

Treaties,  9,  247,  253. 

Trego,  274. 

Treslong,  103. 

Trico,  Catalina,  153. 

Truax,  274. 

Truce,  Twelve  Years,  137,  149. 
True  Born  Englishman,  269. 
Truth,  54. 

Turks,  32,  105,  121,  186,  240. 

Tyl  Uhlenspiegel,  62. 

Union  College,  229. 

Union  of  Arras,  5,  84,  85. 


Union  of  the  American  Colonies, 
4,  225,  242. 

Union  of  Utrecht,  85. 

Unity,  138,  242. 

Unknown  Soldier,  The,  176. 
Usselinx,  50,  134,  141. 

Utrecht,  109,  247,  263. 

Valenciennes,  67,  83,  248,  276. 
Van  Curler,  Arendt,  153,  213, 220. 
Van  den  Berg,  267. 

Van  der  Meulen,  267. 

Van  Lennep,  95. 

Van  Rensselaer,  193,  235. 

Van  Soest,  R.  H.,  193. 

Van  Tassel,  66. 

Van  T wilier,  Wouter,  173,  194. 
Van  Winkle,  E.,  192. 

Vassar,  41,  279. 

Verdun  Compact,  22,  23. 

Vere,  Sir  Horace,  166. 

Vermilye,  A.  G.,  245,  262. 
Vermilye,  D.,  262. 

Vermilye,  E.  E.,  262. 

Vernon,  268. 

Versteeg,  D.,  192. 

Vesalius,  45. 

Vincent,  268. 

Vingboom’s  Map,  192-96. 
Violets,  278. 

Virginia,  140,  256,  277. 

Voetius,  238. 

Volkerson,  D.,  196. 

Voltaire,  153. 

Votes,  89. 

Wal  (root),  11,  12,  14. 

Waldenses,  77,  206,  207. 

Walkill,  214. 

Waller,  hi,  268. 

Wallonia,  Greater,  252-57. 
Walloon  and  Huguenot,  247. 
Walloon  archives,  106. 


INDEX 


Walloon  churches,  186-190. 

Walloon  Family  in  America,  A, 
134- 

Walloon  genius,  25. 

Walloon  literature,  143.  See  Bel- 
gic  Confession. 

Walloon  provinces,  4,  5,  11,  85- 
86,  276. 

Walloon  traits  and  features,  114, 
1 15,  117,  1 18,  270. 

Walloons,  8-16,  26,  27,  67,  74,  78, 
85,  95,  126,  127. 

Walloons  in  England,  126,  127. 

Walloons  in  France,  251. 

Walloons  in  Germany,  127,  128, 
236,  237. 

Walloons  in  Holland,  103,  107, 
108,  189. 

Walloons  in  Ireland,  104,  127. 

Walloons  in  lands  of  exile,  250. 

Walloons  in  New  Netherland,  68, 
75,  98,  106,  134,  148,  183-91, 
276. 

Walloons  in  Scotland,  127. 

Walloons  in  Sweden,  1 10-18,  196. 

Walloons  in  Wales,  127. 

Wampum,  178. 

War,  166. 


Warfare  of  religion  and  science, 

247; 

Washington,  George,  65. 

Wecaco,  174. 

Weepers’  Tower,  166. 

Welsh,  210,  226. 

Wendell,  275. 

Wesel,  94,  95,  164,  186,  189. 
West  India  Company,  4,  9,  50, 
134-43,  165,  172,  173,  197,  203. 
West  Indies,  218,  252,  256. 
Whittier,  210,  276. 

Wilhelmina  (Queen),  4,  129. 
William  the  Silent,  4,  50,  57,  96, 
149,  207,  221. 

William  III,  104. 

Williams,  Roger,  145,  159,  218. 
Willibrod,  164. 

Wilmington,  174. 

Wiltwick,  213,  214. 

Windmills,  195. 

Wolves,  278. 

Women,  271. 

Women,  Education  of,  174. 
World  War,  279. 

Yacht,  9. 

Yale  College,  263. , 


Date  Due 

* 

